One.

That means congratulations, for all you English-only speakers.

Both of them (as well as some others whom I don’t know) were profiled in Le Monde, explaining why they’re voting for John McCain. Not too shabby, eh? It’s not exactly a small-town local paper! There’s audio of their comments at Le Monde, and both of them have written about it. Read Little Miss Attila’s post and Cobb’s post.

Votez pour McCain!

from MVRWC

I was interested in reading about John McCain’s views of sending his own son to war. I have lived through watching and waiting while my son served 15 months in a violent, savage neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq and will probably have to do it again some time down the road. Since John McCain is, in all likelihood, the next Commander in Chief of the military, I want to know how he views sending our young men and women to war.

One of the reasons I’m excited about McCain’s candidacy is that I know he supports our military and will make sure our men and women do not go into battle without proper cause, support and supplies. Regardless of the politics of it, he has been willing to be open about his views of the necessity of defeating islamofascists ‘over there’ instead of waiting for another attack here with our heads in the sand.

Then there are the politics of an unpopular war, which seem to many observers to be hobbling his campaign. As a result, McCain has taken pains to give reporters at every stop his very specific assessment of the conduct of the war, which he authorized and continues to endorse. “The Bush administration made every conceivable mistake you could have made—military, political, even economic. [I would have done] the opposite of what they did, particularly having more boots on the ground, not allowing the looting, setting up a de-Baathification program immediately, and moving more quickly to form a government.”

Since almost no one in the top echelon of the Bush administration had any active military experience, I ask McCain if the president—who is commander-in-chief, after all—should be required to have some active service, perhaps even combat duty. “It would be helpful,” he says, “but I have to hasten to add that some of our great presidents did not have a wealth of military experience. Look at Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. What would be helpful is if more members of Congress served in the military so they would understand the challenges that the young men and women are facing.”

McCain’s sons are both serving the country. His older son, Jack, is currently at the Naval Academy. His younger son, Jimmy, is a Marine deployed to Iraq. McCain’s entire life has been a testament to duty. Duty and service are not about pretty words and theories, but are about action and sacrifice. Its about serving a cause bigger than yourself.

John McCain has taught his sons that duty “is serving a cause greater than you,” honor “is the ability to do the right thing when nobody else knows,” and “serving a cause greater than yourself is the most ennobling of all avocations.” And now his sons are men. Cindy McCain says: “Both of my boys are grown up, and now one is really doing what a man does—and that is going off to war.”

Its understandable that McCain is reluctant to talk about his son, Jimmy, who is currently deployed in Iraq. Considering what happened to McCain as the son of the Chief of Naval Operations while he was held in the Hanoi Hilton, I’m sure he doesn’t want his own son to be put in the position of a being a prized target for the enemy.

Still, it’s clear from watching McCain that Jimmy—and what may lie in store for him during his deployment in Iraq—weighs heavily on his mind. McCain says he won’t discuss Jimmy’s deployment, but it also seems he can’t not talk about him. So sometimes McCain will bring up his son unexpectedly, out of the blue. “You know,” McCain says, greeting the limo driver, a man he has known from past campaign trips, “my son Jimmy is in the Marines now. He’s doing great. Yes, sir, Jimmy’s doing great. Just great.”

Yeah, I understand that.

Read the article, it gives a lot of insight into the man who will be President.

A segment of Conservatives are agonizing about whether or not John McCain is conservative enough to be supported as the Republican nominee for the presidency. He is repeatedly compared to Ronald Reagan. I find that odd seeing as Ronald Reagan’s record was not as conservative as conservatives want to remember it to have been. Still, Ronald Reagan is the standard bearer by which ‘true conservatism’ is determined. While many still cast about looking for the perfect ‘conservative’ candidate, I submit that there is no such creature.

I ran across an article today that compared John McCain’s conservative credentials to those of Winston Churchill. Michael Makovsky states in his article The Model for McCain? Not Reagan, but Churchill, “McCain certainly has not achieved Churchill’s heights, but he can legitimately claim to be the most Churchillian among the Republicans of his day.”

Makovsky’s points out that the similarities between McCain and Churchill are striking and instructive. Both men are thought to be/have been mavericks who were/are distrusted by their Conservatives peers.

Both grew up as underachievers in the shadow of prominent fathers and ancestors and then surpassed them in renown. Churchill’s father was chancellor of the Exchequer, a descendant of the Duke of Marlborough who defeated the armies of Louis XIV, while McCain’s father and grandfather were prominent admirals. Both McCain and Churchill were fearless soldiers and prisoners of war, although Churchill escaped Boer captivity after mere weeks while McCain endured more than five grueling years at the Hanoi Hilton. Both have felt most at home in battle, whether in war or political chambers, and have shared a restlessness to advance their own careers and the cause of their countries.

Neither Churchill nor McCain was ever liked much by his colleagues. Perhaps early on Churchill was more liked and his brilliance more respected, but he switched from the Conservatives in 1904 to the Liberals with much newfound partisan fervor, and the Conservatives never forgave him even after he returned to the fold in 1924-even after he won WWII. Churchill’s dispute with the party leadership over control of India (he favored it), Nazi Germany (he was against it), Zionism (he was for it), and other divisive issues, as well as his occasional outreach to Labourites-indeed, he headed a wartime coalition government-did not help his popularity among the party faithful. McCain has always been a Republican, but, without being the partisan warrior Churchill was, he has never been personally popular with his party colleagues. He further alienated the party faithful and establishment by co-sponsoring legislation with Democrats. Both have been perceived by colleagues as erratic, and occasionally harsh in personal relations.

Fundamental to Churchill’s worldview was the belief that priorities had to be rigidly ranked and that the supreme interests need to be vigorously and single-mindedly pursued. Chief among those interests was national security. McCain has suggested a similar approach. Indeed, McCain and Churchill lived and breathed national security issues, and it is in this policy field that their similarities are most pronounced. They both strongly believed in their countries, considering them the chief champions of civilization, and they have been rarities in usually putting national security interests ahead of their political fortunes.

Read the rest of the story …..

*emphasis mine.

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