John McCain Lies, Again

John McCain stood before the VFW on August 18th, stood before a group of veterans who had gone in harm’s way in wars on foreign soil, and lied to them about the support that he is providing to their comrades presently bearing arms in a war on foreign soil.

John McCain explodes into a tirade of righteous indignation and anger at the merest hint that someone might be disrespecting his precious service to his country, but he stands in front of an association of just such veterans and disrespects their sacrifice by lying to them to pander for their votes.

John McCain dishonors himself and the uniform he once wore.

John McCain claims credit for a bill in Congress for which he did not vote, against which he spoke out, and against which he sponsored a competing bill which failed. McCain was one of 24 Republicans who declined to support the better bill, the one which passed, yet he says to the VFW,

“In its initial version, that bill failed to address the number one education request that I've heard from career service members and their families -- the freedom to transfer their benefits to a spouse or a child. The bill also did nothing to retain the young officer and enlisted leaders who form the backbone of our all-volunteer force.

“As a political proposition, it would have much easier for me to have just signed on to what I considered flawed legislation. But the people of Arizona, and of all America, expect more from their representatives than that, and instead I sought a better bill. I’m proud to say that the result is a law that better serves our military, better serves military families, and better serves the interests of our country.” (emphasis mine)

Just to be crystal clear: his bill failed. The bill that he opposed passed.

His “did nothing to retain the young officer and enlisted leaders” means that his preference was to disallow educational benefits until these “young leaders” had stayed in the service long enough to become “old leaders” and no longer of any use to the military before allowing them to retire and receive educational benefits.

His desire to make educational benefits transferable was to serve military dependents instead of those serving in uniform. It would have raised the cost of the benefit enormously while diminishing the reward to those actually putting their lives on the line. It would have been another step, along with “stop loss,” toward turning our all-volunteer force into indentured servitude.

The law that resulted is indeed a better law than what John McCain sought, and it is in spite of John McCain’s efforts that it is so, not because of him.

John McCain is trying to lie his way into the White House.