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Last night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno:
JAY: For 1 Million dollars, how many houses do you own?
SEN. MCCAIN: (laughs) You know, could I just mention to you Jay that, uh, in a moment of seriousness, I spent 5 and a half years in a prison cell, without- I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair. And I spent those 5 and a half years um because, not because I wanted to get a house when I got out.
You can see the video here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553/vp/26407284#26407284
It is MSNBC so don’t watch the end if you aren’t into biased journalism. However, I think they have a point.
I’m 23 years old. I haven’t even been through some of life’s toughest times yet, and I have never been in the military, and I don’t plan on it. The way I see it, if I’m going to put my life on the line, it will be for my family and my closest friends first. After that, there better be something worth risking my life for. I’d be happy to fight for a cause that I support, but let’s just say this war is not that cause.
Now, I do have unmeasurable amounts of respect for those in the military who will put their lives on the line every day for whatever reason their commander-in-chief gives them. It takes balls of steel to do what they do, especially knowing that these days theres a good number of them who are fighting completely against their own beliefs. But they still do it. That’s something to look up to, I think.
John McCain put his life on the line for reasons I am not aware of, and I don’t need to know to have respect for the man. I know that he was a POW for 5 and a half years, and I can’t imagine what that feels like. All I can say to that is thank God he survived that and was able to overcome some of the mental effects that a great deal of veterans suffer post-war.
Lately it seems that John McCain has been exploiting this hard time in his past, using it more for sympathy than what he really should be using it for. When I experience a tough time (and thankfully I have not been through something as tough as being a Prisoner of war), I try to do two things. First, I give thanks to God and those around me who helped me get through it. Second, I try and reach out to others who may have faced similar problems and help them. The one thing I definitely try not to do, is use unfortunate times in my life as a way of getting ahead.
As Americans, we all come from different places and are faced with great obstacles to overcome to get where we want to be. Frankly, some people don’t make it to where they want to be. But many push on and make great leaps and bounds to get further and further in their lives and I bet the last thing on their mind is to relive their harsh past.
I don’t like to pick at specific votes that the candidates made in the past because bills are not as simple as the average American thinks. But John McCain did write off the new G.I. Bill as “too generous.” Now, I don’t know about you, but if you do a “favor” for someone, thats one thing. Them mailing you a thank you card is nice of them. If you put your life on the line for you country so each and every American can keep their rights and freedoms, not just 1 time, but up to 7 separate times in Iraq, that is no longer a favor. And we as Americans who don’t put our lives on the line owe these military men and woman way more than just a magnet on our car. We owe them the right to a college education that most of us earn during the age that you generally fight, we owe them good health care, we owe them job training, the list goes on.
What should be something that every American involved in this election views, regardless of party, as a heroic experience in a true American’s life, is becoming a line of defense for any grievance someone of an opposing view has towards him.
When Hillary Clinton was asked on Jay Leno about her sniper fire comment, she didn’t say “you know Jay, in all seriousness, my husband cheated on me multiple times in the public square. You could say that hit me like a bullet coming out of nowhere.” Instead, she joked.
John McCain has been trying his best (and frankly its been working) to paint Barack Obama as out of touch with the American people by telling them he’s a celebrity, someone who cannot be on their level.
Don’t you think it’s fair to say that if you have a rich wife, and together own so much property that you don’t even know how much that really is, without crunching some numbers with your staff, that you could also be a little out of touch with “working class America?” You know, and this goes for both candidates, there are people who never forget where they came from, and then theres people who do seem to forget. So just because you grew up middle class, doesn’t mean you automatically remember where you came from and can relate. So every candidate has to prove that they not only grew up like the average American, but they are proud of it, and will never forget where they came from.
John McCain, lately has been using his POW story for all the wrong reasons. It’s time he stops defaulting to that story every time a tough question is asked, or even a joke for that matter, and start giving answers that may be relate able to those who haven’t been a POW for 5 and a half years.
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