Now McCain's camp is claiming Kerry rumors in 2004

[FreedomAngel82]

So who was it? Biden? McCain? Both?

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-boyce/vice-president-john-mccai_b_16678.html

Snip: < A conservative magazine has recently been the first to tentatively identify the potential missing piece in an American political puzzle that is just over six years old now: how John McCain could forgive George Bush and his operatives for launching perhaps the worst political attack in American history during the 2000 Presidential Primary in South Carolina.

This attack culminated in hate-filled messages where anonymous callers told voters that John McCain's adopted daughter from Bangladesh, was "actually" McCain's illegitimate black daughter - some push calls were more blunt, calling her McCain's "nigger baby."

As the father of an adopted child from China, I could never fathom how John McCain could forgive this deepest and most evil of personal attacks. How could a warrior like this, a man who has clearly shown a willingness to take unpopular stands - stand for an attack not on himself but on his young daughter?

The answer may be just months away when if, as some expect, Cheney retires and the Vice Presidency is handed to a man the Democrats would find very tough to beat: John McCain. Why is his popularity so high among Democrats and why would Karl Rove et al have been willing to strike a deal with him? It was brilliantly simple. >

More at the link....

[Mass]

1. Probably McCain started that,

and Biden decided that he liked the idea (He is still infatuated of McCain).

Anyway, this story is the one that makes the most sense to me.

[jsamuel]

2. nope, sorry, never would happen

1. If Bush would have wanted McCain as VP, he would have chose him before.
2. Bush would never appoint someone who isn't neo-con enough... (think Myers reaction)

[Mass]

3. McCain is more neo-con than Bush, if possible,

He just cares a little more about the troops.

[onehandle]

4. Wrong. It's a facade, assisted by his mental condition.

He would screw soldiers over at the wishes of Corporate America in a heartbeat.

A President McCain would make Bush look like President Clinton.

You are right about him being more Neo-Con.

Fear him.

[aquart]

5. bush would never appoint someone people like better. ever.

there would literally have to be a gun pointing at his head.

mccain turned bush-friendly on the hope of being appointed veep?

bush knows that would leave him five minutes from impeachment. the only veep that prick will appoint is a poison pill.

[leveymg]

9. You assume Dubya, not Poppy, is the Godfather

Cheney was chosen because he and Rumsfeld were the trusted Bush crime family hit-men. Both of them are marked men, so the Conciliatori (McCain) has to be put forward, as he's the only one who isn't shot up and mortally wounded at this point.

Not sure who Dubya is in this book -- maybe a really stupid version of Sonny, who was nasty, self-indulgent and awfully dim. Dubya has avoided toll plazas in New Jersey, though.

[wisteria]

6. I could see McCain promoting this alliance for his own benefit.

His media persona is so far removed from the real McCain. The real McCain is a very conservative voting,anti-women,war mongering hot tempered egotist.

[keithjx]

7. Bush will do

whatever he is told to do, just like he always has. He'll be manipulated into believing that he's doing something noble by perpetuating neocon control by going along with the plan. He's a puppet and always has been. I'm not saying this will happen, but if it's the plan, Bush won't stand in the way of it....
KJ

[FreedomAngel82]

14. See the McCain torture thing

Yep. So this makes the democrats fight about this and not want Kerry as the nominee and make himself look better.

[aquart]

8. I constantly meet democrats who think mccain is a good choice.

what i keep getting told is that the rest of the country will vote for mccain. this is the result of letting people believe we lost the election because we didn't get the votes.

[Teaser]

10. Anyone want to start a McCain "Dirt Squad"?

The guy has got to have dirt. A lot of it.
We can collaborate on finding it and disseminating it...

[Jack from Charlotte]

19. He was one of "the Keating Five." Start there.*

*

[Poiuyt]

20. John McCain is no war hero - He gave away military secrets while POW

snip -

What is the real story behind his days as a POW? The U.S. Veteran Dispatch had an article in June of 1996 entitled "POW Songbird McCain Wrongly Described As A Hero." It recounted numerous instances where John McCain violated the Military Coda of Conduct, which specifically orders American personnel to give the enemy no information other than name, rank, serial number, and date of birth. It requires that they accept no favors from the enemy, and to make no written or oral statement disloyal to the United States.

The fact is, in exchange for better medical treatment, McCain violated this code four days after being captured on Oct. 26, 1967. In a U.S. News and World Report interview dated May 14, 1973, two months after he was released, McCain admitted that he exchanged military information in exchange for spending six weeks in a hospital normally reserve for North Vietnamese Military officers.

U.S. government records show that less than two weeks after he was taken to the hospital, Hanoi's press began quoting specific military information, including the name of the aircraft carrier on which McCain had been based, information about the location of rescue ships and the order of which his attack was supposed to take place. The records demonstrate, according to the Dispatch article that McCain continued to collaborate with the Communists after he recovered from his injuries. He did a number of propaganda broadcasts that were aimed at destroying the moral of American servicemen fighting in the jungles of South Vietnam, On June 4, 1969, a U.S. Wire Service story reported one of McCain's broadcasts.

more -

http://www.namvets.com/Reading/john_mccain_is_no_war_hero.htm

[Wordie]

11. There was another interesting HuffPo article re: McCain in December:

Here's a link to more info on the article by Scher, entitled, "
McCain: Most Dangerous Man in America"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2489899&mesg_id=2490864

Hint: Kristol likes him.

[FreedomAngel82]

15. Your hint is enough for me

[Wordie]

16. Let's hope that it doesn't convince Bush, et al. eom

[Virginia Dare]

12. I can't see either of Bush's or McCain's egos supporting this arrangement.

EOM

[PATRICK]

13. If true

and some alternate scenarios all point to some goals like these, you can expect McCain to get duped and double crossed as he has been consistently before and after the period of his schmoozing and supposed dealing. It has been like shooting fish in a barrel so far and any practical ways McCain has used to oppose ANY of Bush's agenda in Congress have been gutted without a peep anywhere and without much credit for anything able to go to McCain.

Just the ongoing destruction of a potential rival/alternative to the Bush circle. Guiliani is in that same bottomless boat in a sea of sharks. Frisk is clutching his life preserver. Etc. etc. Even Congressional cronies have been left dangling in their own nooses- with one exception for one special reason.

Chuckie Hagel. Why? ES&S. He is the only one privy- not just implicated in- to the vote fraud machinery. He is allowed his harmless verbal leeway, wisely steering away from making a fool of himself with meaningless legislation. He is the one they are not bothering to trash, not in the inner circle, but a founder of one of their irreplaceable tools for retaining power. Few others have the goods on what is going on really in the control room. Gingrich is another, but he has been exiled from the inner circle and has pretty much trashed his own chances. But he KNOWS he can be an alternative with clout, owning Georgia, electric style. But who on earth is left of the GOP, not in the Bush inner circle, possessing any ability to challenge the Bushes? No one really.

If the Bush people cannot make up their minds they will put strings all over Hagel or position the worst Democrat possible to win a truly Pyrrhic victory- and let ALL the levees of Bush disasters deluge
our party.

That is how things stand with the GOP. As a party they have been strangled by the Bushes. That is all there is to it. The majority and their dark horses are all equally incapable of bucking the system. It is all matter of what can be engineered either in chaos or at Crawford.

What of Democrats? It is a sad commentary that McCain or Third Way Democrats have in parallel imitated the destruction process- all in the mistaken notion of picking up the shine of victory. The temptation to futility on the inside is as overwhelming as it was for J. Lieberman to mount a ridiculous doomed campaign. This story links the trap everyone willing gets into trying to fix the center of power in DC and not in the majority of the population- the ones truly left in the cold with zero real options.

I would like some thread to sweep the entire boards of DU and see if ANY of the erstwhile admirers of McCain still exist in any fashion. There are two reasons they self-deluded. First and foremost, McCain is too conservative and his "noble" causes ARE ineffectual and just "there" without any follow up with teeth. Second, his judgment is WORSE than any of our worst candidates for ever playing ball with Bush well past the limits of any rational purpose. I find more rational reason for Nader supporters- who seem to have faded away also- at least on ideological and issue grounds than anything McCain has to offer. Wes Clark, in all the supposed areas McCain is supposed to be strong in among males, should have taken up all such feeble notions years ago- including this 2004 notion that Democrats wanted McCain. That claim sounds pathetically outdated and false on its face and probably based on selective polling questions bracketing out all better choices. McCain made some waves and did no one any good, certainly not the nation, in 2004. He keeps kissing his chances goodbye and kissing Bush hello.

[theophilus]

17. It will be some "strong" Repub. Someone who is in the NeoCon

pocket will be up next. The worse they can make Bush appear the better. The next GOPer will look good in comparison. The same people will be pulling the strings behind the scenes, of course. Spurious George will be very much compensated, and besides....we know he doesn't care what WE think.

[FreedomAngel82]

18. McCain is gunning for it for sure

Look at all his ass kissing after what they did to him. Shameful.

[emulatorloo]

21. I always believed that they promised him Rove's support in 08

and this part of the story makes WAY TOO MUCH SENSE:

<snip>

Through a remarkable orchestration of behind-the-scenes politicking, John McCain's advisors thrust him in the middle of the John Kerry Vice Presidential selection process - the McCain as VP rumors started not in the Kerry camp but in the McCain camp.

By elevating his status among Independents and Democrats, John McCain dramatically increased his appeal and political power. In fact, McCain currently outpolls some potential Democratic 2008 candidates among DEMOCRATS.

The possibility of McCain running as John Kerry's Vice President forced Rove to deal with McCain. Because with the pending launch of the Swift Boat veterans teed up, Rove simply couldn't let Kerry pick McCain. Two veterans, running together, unifying the country in a time of war would have been virtually unbeatable.

<snip>

So I do believe Rove cut him a deal - to be McCains advisor for 2008.

[applegrove]

22. You really have to wonder about McCain's silence on most issues.