This story does fit with the stories of McCain's temper - he is known to have argued with or yelled at POW/MIA families on at least two occasions in the early 1990's. He was though, the son and grandson of admirals, and I can't figure out why he wasn't promoted further after his release. He said he wanted to stay in the military, and in the 70's, the military could have used a glittery hero. By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet September 21, 2008, http://www.alternet.org/story/ A 1992 video featuring a Republican senator, Republican congressman and top Capitol Hill staffers who worked on Vietnam prisoner of war and missing in action issues say John McCain collaborated with North Vietnamese while a POW, and then covered up that involvement to the detriment of POW/MIA families seeking access to classified Pentagon records about their own family members. The video raises probing questions about the 2008 Republican presidential nominee's war record, especially after McCain made his captivity a major part of his qualifications for the presidency at the Republican National Convention. In 2004, the GOP focused on Democratic nominee John Kerry's war record to criticize his candidacy. To date, the video has been posted on a handful of blogs but has been ignored by the mainstream media. While it features Republican stalwarts on POW/MIA issues, it also suggests that McCain's war records at the Pentagon and in North Vietnam would reveal potentially very controversial details about the GOP's presidential candidate. The nearly eight-minute video is posted on YouTube under "Vietnam Veterans Against McCain." It begins with the title, "1992 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIAs," and features ex-Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH), Rep. Robert Dornan (R-CA), senate staffers Tracy Usry, James Lucier, and military family members Lynn O'Shea, of the National Alliance of Families and retired Army Cpl. Bob Dumas, whose brother was a POW lost in the Korean War, and Joseph Douglass, Jr., author of Betrayed, about America's missing POWs. The video has no author credits. The footage begins with Douglass, Usry, O'Shea and Smith all saying that McCain worked to kill legislation that would have opened the Pentagon's classified archive of POW/MIA files. "Many, many documents were held back for no reason," former Sen. Smith said. Dorman said legislation that passed the House with no opposing votes was single-handedly blocked in the Senate by McCain. "On the Senate side, we had one person standing in the way," Dornan said, referring to McCain. Dumas then gave the reason why - the Pentagon's records would reveal McCain had collaborated with the Vietnamese. "He didn't want nobody to check his background because a lot of POWs who were with him in the camp said he was a collaborator with the enemy," Dumas said. "He gave the enemy information they wanted." Lucier, identified as a former U.S. Senate Chief of Staff, said "we do know that when he was over there, he cooperated with Communist news services in giving interviews that were not flattering to the United States." Usry, identified as U.S. Senate Minority Staff former chief investigator, said "information shows that he made over 32 tapes of propaganda for the Vietnamese government." Dornan said there were transcripts of other POWs reacting to McCain's false statements, saying, "Oh my God, is that Admiral McCain's son Is that the admiral's son? Is that Johnny, telling us that our principle targets are schools, orphanages, hospitals, temples, churches? That was Jane Fonda's line." Dornan said those transcripts are in war museums in North Vietnam, where McCain, as a senator, pressured the country not to release them or face opposition concerning normalization of relations with the United States. "McCain could not have wanted those to turn up in the middle of a presidential race," the ex-congressman said. "He knows that. I know that. And a few other people know that. That's why he was against Bob Dole's legislation." Dornan then offered another interesting explanation why McCain refused an offer by the North Vietnamese to be released. Dornan said those released first were collaborators, which would have ended McCain's military career and hurt the Navy, where his father commanded the Pacific fleet. "Nobody takes that one step beyond that," Dornan said, speaking of McCain's refusal to be released. "If Admiral John McCain's son had accepted this princely status and come home in 1967, while others sat there for five years, what would the Navy have done with the son of an admiral who opted to get special treatment and come home? No Navy career. No House seat. No Senate seat. It would have been the end of his career." Steven Rosenfeld is a Senior Fellow at AlterNet.org, where he reports on elections from a voting rights perspective. His books include Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting (AlterNet Books, 2008), What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election (The New Press, 2006), and Making History in Vermont: The Election of a Socialist to Congress (Hollowbrook Publishing, 1992). An award-winning journalist, he has been a staff reporter at National Public Radio, Monitor Radio, TomPaine.com, and at daily and weekly newspapers in Vermont. © 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/99663/

For John McCain, the panel discussion on This Week with George Stephanopoulos could not have been more brutal. Minutes after conservative columnist George Will declared that the Senator was decidedly un-presidential is his unexpected call for the firing of SEC Chairman Chris Cox, Sam Donaldson, the long-time ABC hand, said that McCain's erratic message on the economy again raised questions about his age. "I suppose the McCain campaign's hope is that when there's a big crisis, people will go for age and experience," said Will. "The question is, who in this crisis looked more presidential, calm and un-flustered? It wasn't John McCain who, as usual, substituting vehemence for coherence, said 'let's fire somebody.' And picked one of the most experienced and conservative people in the administration, Chris Cox, and for no apparent reason... It was un-presidential behavior by a presidential candidate." Donaldson then jumped in: "It was two days after the he said the fundamentals of the economy were strong. His talking points have gotten all mixed up. And I think the question of age is back on the table." It should be noted that McCain's call for the firing of Cox was dismissed right off the bat, as the president does not have the authority to axe an SEC chairman. The criticisms that Donaldson raised concerned the fact that McCain started the week by touting the fundamentals of the economy, before pivoting into fits of populist mantra and calling for increased regulation of the markets - position at odds with McCain's traditional economic philosophies. "When I say age," he explained, "I don't know the difference between finding your talking points and not delivering the right ones, we have seen him do this frequently but this last week was the worst. Between two stops in Florida, as you say, he had to revise his thinking about what he wanted to say about the economy, wanted to feel the pain suddenly than say everything is great." The whole, painful, episode crested with Will leveling an even harsher blow. "John McCain showed his personality this week," said the writer and pundit, "and made some of us fearful."

Tax Deceptions August 8, 2008 McCain misrepresents Obama's tax proposals again. And again, and again. Factcheck.org McCain has released three new ads, with a number of false and misleading claims about Obama's tax proposals. A TV spot claims Obama once voted for a tax increase "on people making just $42,000 a year." That's true for a single taxpayer, who would have seen a tax increase of $15 for the year – if the measure had been enacted. But the ad shows a woman with two children, and as a single mother, she would not have been affected unless she made more than $62,150. The increase that Obama once supported as part of a Democratic budget bill is not part of his current tax plan anyway. A Spanish-language radio ad claims the measure Obama supported would have raised taxes on "families" making $42,000, which is simply false. Even a single mother with one child would have been able to make $58,650 without being affected. A family of four with income up to $90,000 would not have been affected. The TV ad claims in a graphic that Obama would "raise taxes on middle class." In fact, Obama's plan promises cuts for middle-income taxpayers and would increase rates only for persons with family incomes above $250,000 or with individual incomes above $200,000. The radio ad claims Obama would increase taxes "on the sale of your home." In fact, home-sale profits of up to $500,000 per couple would continue to be exempt from capital gains taxes. Very few sales would see an increase under Obama's proposal to raise the capital gains rate. A second radio ad, in English, says, "Obama has a history of raising taxes" on middle-class Americans. But that's false. It refers to a vote that did not actually result in a tax increase and could not have done so. These ads continue what's become a pattern of misrepresentation by the McCain campaign about his opponent's tax proposals. Some of McCain's previous false claims: McCain falsely claimed Obama's plan would increase taxes on 23 million small-business owners, when the vast majority of them would get a cut. Any increase would actually fall only on the most affluent, a few hundred thousand business owners. McCain falsely claimed Obama "says he'll raise taxes on electricity," though Obama has said no such thing and his tax plan contains no proposal for a tax on electricity. As noted already, McCain falsely claimed Obama once voted for a Democratic budget bill that called for raising taxes on persons making as little as $32,000 a year, when in fact the proposal would not have affected anyone with total income under $41,500 a year, or $83,000 for a married couple with no children. McCain stated that Obama would raise taxes "if you have an investment for your child’s education or own a mutual fund or a stock in a retirement plan." This was found to be "false" by Politifact.com and Factcheck.org. McCain has been twisting Obama tax facts since early June, when he told a small-business gathering that : "Under Senator Obama's tax plan, Americans of every background would see their taxes rise." There may be persons of "every background" among the affluent, but McCain's phrasing was misleading. These ads continue his long-running pattern of deception on taxes.

Here's an interesting story I found about media favoritism between the candidates: http://www.alternet.org/election08/88101/?ses=cb6420ea57b8d6b867a64c23e1a02476