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posted by janrinok on Sunday August 26 2018, @07:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the RIP dept.

Chicago Tribune:

Sen. John McCain, who faced down his captors in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp with jut-jawed defiance and later turned his rebellious streak into a 35-year political career that took him to Congress and the Republican presidential nomination, died Saturday after battling brain cancer for more than a year. He was 81.

McCain, with his irascible grin and fighter-pilot moxie, was a fearless and outspoken voice on policy and politics to the end, unswerving in his defense of democratic values and unflinching in his criticism of his fellow Republican, President Donald Trump. He was elected to the Senate from Arizona six times but twice thwarted in seeking the presidency.

An upstart presidential bid in 2000 didn't last long. Eight years later, he fought back from the brink of defeat to win the GOP nomination, only to be overpowered by Democrat Barack Obama. McCain chose a little-known Alaska governor as his running mate in that race, and turned Sarah Palin into a national political figure.

After losing to Obama in an electoral landslide, McCain returned to the Senate determined not to be defined by a failed presidential campaign in which his reputation as a maverick had faded. In the politics of the moment and in national political debate over the decades, McCain energetically advanced his ideas and punched back hard at critics — Trump not least among them.

The scion of a decorated military family, McCain embraced his role as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, pushing for aggressive U.S. military intervention overseas and eager to contribute to "defeating the forces of radical Islam that want to destroy America."

Asked how he wanted to be remembered, McCain said simply: "That I made a major contribution to the defense of the nation."

Also at The New York Timesand c|net.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @03:18PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @03:18PM (#726571)

    You can put the deaths of all those US Sailors at his feet

    The fuck? [hotair.com] For an example of duplicity, note that McShitStain and Al-Qaeda support [fox19.com] was mutual. [telegraph.co.uk]

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 26 2018, @04:31PM (6 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 26 2018, @04:31PM (#726586) Journal

    The hotair link is pretty good. What is left out of that account is, grabassery. Skylarking. Fucking off. Young John McCain started that conflagration when he gunned his engines. His exhaust is what set that Zuni rocket off. If you should watch the movie of the Forrestal fire, you'll want to rewind and watch that initial rocket launch a couple of times. That rocket was bathed in fire and exhaust from McCain's engines, causing the rocket propellant to ignite. It needs to be noted that John was evacuated from the carrier, while other, seriously wounded men, were left at the mercies of the ship's doctors and corpsmen. Why was John singled out for evacuation? Politics. Johnny's daddy had him evacuated.

    An incidental - McCain's daddy was one of the admirals who made the decision to use that old ordnance. John McCain Senior figures into a lot of history in both Vietnam and the Med/Mideast in the '60's and '70's.

    And, back to my original post. I can't like McCain, I can't even respect him a helluva lot. But - he's family. He did go out there, he did put his life on the line. He's far more of a brother than that asshole George Dubya Bush ever was.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @04:58PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @04:58PM (#726598)

      If you should watch the movie of the Forrestal fire, you'll want to rewind and watch that initial rocket launch a couple of times. That rocket was bathed in fire and exhaust from McCain's engines, causing the rocket propellant to ignite.

      Huh? [youtu.be]

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @05:16PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @05:16PM (#726604)

        Okay, one of the comments explains...

        After watching this again i notice it is fake. I seen the un-cut and true video in 1978 at bootcamp. My brother was also on the carryer. Gedunk talk was all McCain falt. Watch this video in 0.25 speed! Its a parked jet, at 3:32, chain down, chocked with nothing on its pylons! NO ordnance! Then you see a puff fly off. NOT REAL, then they use the real video and go from the jet on the cat ready to lanch, to the fire. Notice how much smoke, its been going a while. FYI...the aircraft the use was pointed out to sea. Had a missile shot off from it, it would go out to port side into the water. They made this from cut up old training films, look at the notice when they get to the fire. Thats splicing tape. It is so clear how they try to make the air boss control room sound so technical, the count down, then there! Puff, fire. Not! Not! Not The story of the accident! This happen when McCain starting up without a line man and did a cold start, that set off a heat seeker due to being to close To each other.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 27 2018, @04:52PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 27 2018, @04:52PM (#726988) Journal

          I spent several minutes looking for that footage on Youtube. The movie we watched in boot camp is not what Youtube has available. I did find several videos explaining how "Wetstart McCain" caused the fire, but none of them (that I found) actually shows the real video.

          Memory fades, and memory plays tricks, and it's been decades since I watched that movie. But, we were required to watch it many times, and we discussed the movie many times. I clearly remember seeing one jet fire up it's engines, and bathe the jet behind it with fire and hot exhaust. The Zuni isn't visible, until AFTER it has ignited, then it comes out of the wall of hot gasses, creating it's own ball of fire. In eight years of service, I watched that movie at least eight times, as part of fire fighting and damage control training. It was also available from time to time on our CCTV, as "entertainment". We didn't watch an edited version - or more precisely, we didn't watch such a heavily edited version.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @05:52PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @05:52PM (#727024)

      Do tell. [snopes.com] Please find me a better source than that which pretty much rips up what you said to shreds. And when I say "good source" let's see actual names of actual sailors who were present and able to confirm that McCain started it. Let's see properly cited sources. We can discuss why you think an individual knocked unconscious by a concussive explosion should simply stay with the treatment available aboard an aircraft carrier, and whether or not McCain was the only evacuated person, at another time.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 27 2018, @06:55PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 27 2018, @06:55PM (#727069) Journal

        Wetstart McCain.

        Perhaps you're not aware how real life works. A cop isn't really supposed to work a case that involves close acquaintances. An EMT or paremedic, ditto. A judge is supposed to recuse himself from a case he is party to, or overly familiar with. And, a fleet admiral probably shouldn't be investigating a major incident which his son is involved in.

        McCain's daddy ran this investigation. That's really not different from some old redneck judge in the "Old South" investigating his own son's involvement in a lynching of a black man.

        I have often discounted Snopes in the past. I don't trust them. You trust them if you want.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:40AM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:40AM (#727205) Journal

        http://www.monomakhos.com/johnny-wet-start/ [monomakhos.com]

        Lt Cmdr John S McCain III, the son and grandson (and namesake) of illustrious admirals was known as a daredevil –by his own admission. He graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis and –like Kennedy–was known as a slacker and playboy but (this time unlike Kennedy), he needlessly endangered the lives of his fellow crewmen.

        He did so by engaging in a take-off procedure called a “wet start”. Basically, Navy pilots who did this would unnecessarily flood their engines, dumping fuel into the afterburner before starting their engines. This had the dramatic effect of shooting out a large flame from the tail of the aircraft. It was an unnecessary procedure which was often deadly to the ground crews and/or the next pilot in line. According to many of his detractors, McCain was known to regularly engage in this dangerous procedure and thus became known pejoratively as “Johnny Wet-Start”.*

        According to Capt John K Beling (the commanding officer of the Forrestal), on July 29, 1967 at approximately 1050, “…a thick tongue of flame lashed backward from the parked jet, igniting a [Zuni] missile on one of the dozen or so planes parked near the fantail, their engines turning over in readiness for a strike launching scheduled for 11:00am. ‘The rocket shot across the deck’ Capt Beling said, ‘and by a quirk of fate smashed into a fuel tank under a plane on the port side’.” Beling blamed the fiasco on a “wet-start…from one of the planes near the island”.**

        What authority is most likely to know what happened on that fateful day? Maybe the commanding officer of the ship in question?