Discern Report is the fastest growing America First news aggregator in the nation.
John McCain’s grandfather and father were both U.S. Navy admirals. His father, John S. McCain, Jr. was CINCPAC while the son was in a North Vietnamese prison as a POW. When the North Vietnamese learned who he was, they offered to clean him up and send him home early as a token of their “mercy.” I’m certain, if McCain came home early, he could have joined John Kerry and others in their protests and been a darling of the left. But he kept to the military code of conduct and received a few years of beatings for his non-compliance.
What does this man think of President Donald Trump, a real estate developer, son of a real estate developer? That can be summed up in two words: “bone spurs.”
“One aspect of the (Vietnam) conflict by the way that I will never ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest income level of America and the highest income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur,” McCain said. “That is wrong. That is wrong. If we are going to ask every American to serve, every American should serve.”
Trump received five draft deferments for bone spurs in his foot. Though he speaks with respect to the military, and has surrounded himself with generals, the president’s experience in uniform ended when he graduated from a military high school, where his father sent him to learn discipline. McCain believes there’s more to the uniform than discipline.
Not only did McCain know what it’s like to be a Naval officer (a real-life “Maverick” by some accounts), he also knew what it was like for the enemy when he delivered his ordnance. McCain was strapped in to his A-4 Skyhawk on the deck of the U.S.S. Forrestal when a misfired rocket caused massive explosions and fire, killing 134 sailors. In a New York Times interview, he later said “It’s a difficult thing to say. But now that I’ve seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I’m not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam.”
As a POW, McCain learned in a very personal way the cruelty one person can show another. Trump’s response to McCain’s latest barb, accusing the president of “half-baked, spurious nationalism,” was to tell McCain “people have to be careful, because at some point I fight back.”
McCain brushed it off. “I’ve faced greater challenges than this,” he said.
This is certainly true. It’s not true of Trump, whose greatest challenge was what he called his “personal Vietnam,” that is not getting an STD.
The lack of respect between the pair is pretty evident. While I don’t agree some of with McCain’s politics, or his strange devotion to the to the worst peculiarities of the Senate, I believe he does what he does for what he believes to be the best interests of his country. In that, he places, like Trump, a huge value on personal relationships. Where they differ, is that McCain’s view of loyalty goes both ways.
I wonder, internally, how Trump’s generals–Kelly and Mattis–feel about doing their jobs for a man so openly scorned by someone like John McCain. I suspect they may privately share his thoughts about “bone spurs,” but for the sake of the code of conduct and their country, you’ll never hear them speak it.
McCain appears to take swipe at Trump’s ‘bone spur’ Vietnam deferment | TheHill
“One aspect of the (Vietnam) conflict by the way that I will never ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest income level of America and the highest income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur,” McCain said. In total, Trump received five deferments from the draft during the Vietnam War due to heel spurs, bone protrusions caused by a calcium buildup. It’s not the first time things have gotten heated between the pair.
Covid variant BA.5 is spreading. It appears milder but much more contagious and evades natural immunity. Best to boost your immune system with new Z-Dtox and Z-Stack nutraceuticals from our dear friend, the late Dr. Vladimir Zelenko.
I agree with what Steve said here. Having said that, McCain does not and should not get an exemption of criticism. Their are people who served in our Armed Forces who choose to be progressives and they think because they served they are lifetime patriots no matter what. So we have shut up while these punk “patriots” push bad policy. Well McCain is a punk for pushing bad bills in the Senate. One of those bills he co-sponsored with Russ Feingold stifled free speech and money in political campaigns. No to mention it is really a protect incumbents law. It got weakened eventually by our courts, but it should have been stuck down altogether. Just another why I personal feel when need to push for a way to veto our courts
I don’t know. Shouldn’t both men’s track record, positions and ideology count a lot more than things they did, or didn’t, do decades ago? As it is this just seems like another excuse for you to bash Trump for…well existing really. It isn’t like Trump “bone spurs” are new information or particularly relevant to the ongoing civil war between Trump conservatism and…whatever McCain represents.
By all means I understand you don’t like Trump, politically or personally. That’s the nature of this business. You have disagreement with him on policy as well as his numerous moral failings. But this musing about what people think and fantasying that secretly they all abhor or look down at Trump is just childish.