Tag: John McCain
McCain Fears Consequences of Syria No Vote
A rejection, a vote against that resolution by Congress, I think would be catastrophic because it would undermine the credibility of the United States and the president.
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by Roll Call, on the resolution to attack Syria over its use of chemical weapons.
Unhappy McCain Wishes He Were President
Am I happy? I’d like to be president of the United States.
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in an interview with the New Republic.
McCain Pushes for Immigration Reform to Save the GOP
If we don’t do that, frankly I see further polarization of the Hispanic voter. And the demographics are clear that are the Republican Party cannot win a national election. That’s just a fact.
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in an interview on the News Hour , on the need for immigration reform.
McCain Less Volcanic These Days
John’s been better than I’m used to. There have been fewer volcanic moments.
— Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), quoted by the New Yorker, on working with Sen. John McCain on the bipartisan immigration bill.
McCain Admits That Republicans Are Filibustering GOP Nominee for Defense Because He Spoke the Truth about Bush
Sen. John McCain committed a classic Washington gaffe yesterday — he inadvertently told the truth about his party’s motives in filibustering the nomination of Republican former Sen. Chuck Hagel are petty and vindictive:
McCAIN: But to be honest with you, Neil, it goes back to there’s a lot of ill will towards Senator Hagel because when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly and say he was the worst President since Herbert Hoover and said the surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War, which was nonsense. He was anti-his own party and people — people don’t forget that. You can disagree but if you’re disagreeable, then people don’t forget that.
Hagel was wrong about Bush — he was the worst president, not since Hoover, but from James Buchanan or possibly Franklin Pierce, of whom Bush is a direct descendant through his mother, Barbara Pierce Bush. Even that is being polite. By every metric for measuring presidencies, Bush was the worst president ever. For example, he left office as the most unpopular president in the history of polling.
But seriously, as with their brinkmanship on the economy, rather than putting the interests of the United States first, Republicans are once again playing politics even at the risk of hobbling the leadership of the United States military and weakening national security. They have also made filibustering presidential nominees a standard practice from now on.
Don Rickles Diplomacy
Senator John McCain proves, time and again, that he’s nobody’s flunkey.
Indeed, he’s shown us, time and again, that he can be downright spunky.
But in international politics
It’s not diplomatic — just for kicks —
To equate the Iranian president with an orbiting space monkey.
Wrong Man: John McCain Doubles Down on Criticism of Administration’s Benghazi Report While Ignoring His Own Record of Misstating Facts
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After U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice met today with her most vocal critics, GOP Sens. John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Kelly Ayotte, to discuss events after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the three senators rushed to the microphones to double down on their insistence that Rice had played a role in a conspiracy by the Obama White House to cover up the fact that the attack was a terrorist plot — this in spite of the fact that the president himself labeled it a terror attack within 24 hours after it occurred.
“When Ronald Reagan stood up for workers of Gdansk in Poland, when he stood up for the people of Czechoslovakia in Prague Spring, and America did”
– John McCain, incorrectly ascribing actions to Pres. Reagan, who was governor of California during the Prague Spring
– John McCain, incorrectly ascribing actions to Pres. Reagan, who was governor of California during the Prague Spring
On one of the Sunday shows, Graham compared the conspiracy to the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan-era scandal in which top Reagan official, including his secretary of defense, only escaped serving time in prison because they were pardoned by their alleged co-conspirator, Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, after he was elected president. A more realistic assessment came from the Washington Post editorial board, which referred to the Benghazi non-scandal as “bizarre.”
Perhaps the most bizarre aspect — and certainly the most hypocritical part of it — is that it is McCain who is leading the charge against Rice simply because she went on the Sunday shows and said something that proved to be incorrect. No senator has appeared on more Sunday shows than John McCain, and few politicians (who were not currently on the payroll of Fox News) have made as many statements that proved to be wrong.
McCain Goes Off When a Reporter Asks Why He Skipped a Hearing on Benghazi to Hold a News Conference to Complain about Lack of Info on Benghazi (Transcript)
On Wednesday at 11:30 a.m., Sen. John McCain of Arizona and his two top lieutenants in the Senate’s Obama Derangement Caucus, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire (who has replaced Sen. Joe Lieberman, now retired, in the caucus) held a news conference in which they demanded the convening of a Watergate-style select committee to investigate the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi earlier this year in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three presumed CIA agents were killed.
“I’m not gonna comment on how I spend my time in the Senate.”
– McCain to reporter
– McCain to reporter
According to the Associated Press, “The three Republican senators argued that numerous questions about the attack remain unanswered, among them what Obama’s national security team had told him about security in Libya, what steps were taken by Clinton and the roll [sic] of the U.S. military.”
But at the same time McCain was promoting Fox News-driven conspiracies about Benghazi to reporters in one part of the Capitol, he was supposed to be participating in a hearing on the attacks by the administration before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that was underway in another room in the building. McCain is a senior member of the committee.
