Comments on: Mad Mac

By: Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:34:45 +0000

Another correction. Kong, played by Slim Pickens, was a major, not a general.

By: daninardmore

daninardmore — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:31:05 +0000

A minor correction to expertlaw: McCain was a pilot in the Navy, not the Air Force.

By: adam

adam — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:33:13 +0000

“The divided government that McCain would bring is a plus, and who knows where the Messianism of the Obamaites might lead? ”

Certainly an important factor to consider. In the current political environment, with all presidential contenders being interventionists of one stripe or another, a deadlocked Washington may be the best we can hope for.

By: Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:59:26 +0000

He’s the last-in-his-class Gen. Kong. I can imagine him riding a bomb down the chute, singing “Bomb, bomb Iran!”

Yikes.

By: LMaggitti

LMaggitti — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:53:00 +0000

The truly frightening thing about McCain is the combination of vast ignorance and extreme hawkishness. There was a time when I consoled myself that the latter problem might by marginally tempered by at least some degree of foreign policy knowledge, but it has become increasing obvious that he actually combines the substantive cluelessness of Bush with the extreme love for war of Cheney. It is impossible, I think, to understate just how dangerous he would be.

By: expertlaw

expertlaw — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:19:20 +0000

To quote McCain on Yugoslavia,

In the most obscene chapter in recent American history is the conduct of the Kosovo conflict when the president of the United States refused to prepare for ground operations, refused to have air power used effectively because he wanted them flying — he had them flying at 15,000 feet where they killed innocent civilians because they were dropping bombs from such — in high altitude.

The Journal of the Air Force Association responds here – http://www.afa.org/magazine/Oct2001/1001altitude.asp

Within the context of those remarks, McCain’s insistence upon ground forces suggests that he was thinking of a Vietnam-era line of B52s dropping “dumb” munitions, and did not discuss his views with Air Force personnel before making his statements. Despite his supposed military and foreign-policy expertise, his comments suggest a lack of familiarity even with the branch of the armed forces in which he served.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:18:00 +0000

I didn't feel like registering at FT, so I read it here.

By: Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:37:50 +0000

Thou almost presuadest me to support Obama, for the reasons cited by Professor Bacevich, and because notwithstanding some pronouncements of his to the contrary, he might be less belligerent than either McCain or Hillary.

The “almost” is important here. The divided government that McCain would bring is a plus, and who knows where the Messianism of the Obamaites might lead?