There are so many good reasons not to vote for John “Insane” McCain, I had to make a page just to delineate them all. Expect regular updates, as he seems to give me a new reason every time he opens his lyin’ mouth. So, without further ado, it’s

Time for a little “straight talk.”

1. His (lack of) support for the new GI Bill

McCain, having served his country honorably and been through hell for it, and having already gotten his education at the ultimate public institution (he went to the Naval Academy), now wants to deny today’s veterans and currently serving troops the same opportunities. He’s dressed up his excuses in a tissue of lies, fabrications and fuzzy math. Veterans of today deserve a real GI Bill, one that will enable them to become active members of the society they’ve just spent part of their lives defending. By failing to support it, and worse, lacking the courage and integrity to put his vote where his mouth has been, McCain has shown that he does not support the troops, their families, or their children. He’s unworthy to be their commander-in-chief.

Update:  Now that the bill has passed both the Senate and House with veto-proof majorities and it would be political suicide for him to oppose it further, McCain has come out saying he really supported it all along, and all it needed was a little tweaking.  Nice, innit?  What a liar.

2. He thinks war is funny.

Despite having suffered tremendously as a result of our other national military embarassment, Vietnam, McCain seems all too willing to send even more American troops off to die in yet another fruitless, pointless military misadventure. He continues to support the debacle of the Iraq war, and even thinks the answer to Iran’s nuclear “threat” is to commit our already overstretched military to another potential disaster.

3. With this kind of foreign policy experience, what won’t he screw up?

You’d think he’d know by now, the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam. But he made this mistake no fewer than five times on the same tour, and was corrected every time by Sen. Lieberman. And this guy is supposed to be experienced? He jokes about killing thousands of people, and is clueless about the dominant religion in what is arguably the most important region of the world.

4. C***gate

This happened during the 1992 campaign, so it’s obviously not on YouTube, but it has been reported that at a campaign stop McCain called his wife a certain word that most men of character simply do not use in any kind of company. Read the story here.

Now, some may say it’s old news, or that it’s not really that relevant. But I think it speaks to the man’s true character. That is not a word one uses in polite company. It’s certainly not one I would expect to hear from a presidential candidate.

5. Bitchgate

Remember when, last year at a town hall meeting, one of his supporters asked “How do we beat the bitch?” McCain laughed in response to it. Again, behavior unbecoming of a presidential candidate. See the above explanation.

6. Burmagate

For someone with the reputation of being a “maverick”, McCain sure seems like a bog-standard Washington insider to me. In this story, as reported in Newsweek, one of his campaign aides was forced to resign over his connections to the Myanmar military junta that has brutalized and oppressed that nation for 19 years. He won’t change a damn thing if elected – he’ll only perpetuate the same problems that have been there for years.

7.  Torturegate

Despite having spent several years in a North Vietnamese prison, during which he was subjected to various cruel and despicable treatments and repeated violations of the Geneva Conventions against torture, for some unfathomable reason McCain thinks it’s perfectly acceptable for the United States to behave in ways we wouldn’t tolerate from our worst enemies.

This is a lesson most of us learn in first grade:  calling something by a different name doesn’t make it so.  Waterboarding is torture, and illegal whether it’s done by us or to us.  And someone with his experience should know better than to support “interrogation” techniques previously used by such luminaries as the Spanish Inquisition, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and Communist China.

8.  His abysmal voting record

In a recent campaign ad, McCain asserted that he would always support our troops and never abandon them.  But the “facts on the ground”, as they say, belie his assertions.  Actual Senate voting records show he not only has not supported the troops when they needed him, he’s actually helped the Bush administration and its Republican sycophants push them off the cliff at every turn.  Check out this partial list:

McCain’s Voting Record

There’s nothing about this guy to like, and no reason anyone in the military should vote for him.  He’s put stickies on our backs far too many times.  And he’s supposed to be on our side.