John Sidney McCain III: Not Right For Naval Aviation, Not Right For America

Big piece in the Incredible Shrinking Newspaper™© today raking John McCain, the maverick Senator, one-time POW & current GOP presidential nominee over the coals for his screwing w/ the tax-payers' money, among other things, by effing up planes, power lines, & anything else that gets in his way. We (& the Times) have already taken a look at the specific reason Sidney III was blown out of the sky over Hanoi in 1967; this Times story covers some of the Senator's earlier waste & fraud, before he was even a Senator. Takes a certain type to be able to screw the taxpayer consistently, doesn't it? And an even worse type to whine about how he's opposed to pork. Three Navy aircraft treated like a rent-a-car? Is that not pork of the worst kind? It seems as if he's outright lied, or at least printed a "truth" different than the Navy's findings about his mishaps.

McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. "The engine quit while I was practicing landings," he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure. The 23-year-old junior lieutenant wasn't paying attention and erred in using "a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn," investigators concluded. [...] In his autobiography, McCain said he had flown on a Saturday to Philadelphia to watch the annual Army-Navy football game with his parents. The accident report does not mention Philadelphia but rather indicates that McCain departed from a now-closed Navy field in New York City on Sunday afternoon and was headed to Norfolk, Va. In a report dated Jan. 18, 1966, the Naval Aviation Safety Center said it could not determine the cause of the accident or corroborate McCain's account of an explosion in the engine. A close examination of the engine found "no discrepancies which would have caused or contributed to engine failure or malfunction."

So he tries to blame his tools every time he doesn't do the job. And get this:

Edward M. Morrison, a mechanic for VT-7 who is now retired and living in Washington state, said that the plane McCain checked out that day had just been refurbished and that he knew of no engine problems. "McCain came to the flight line that day, carrying his dress whites, and said, 'Give me a pretty plane,' " Morrison said. "Nobody had ever asked me for a pretty plane before. I gave him this one because it was freshly painted. The next time I saw him, I said, 'Don't ever ask me for a pretty plane again.' I think he laughed."

Personal use of naval aircraft to meet Admiral Dad & Mom at the Army-Navy Game? Marry a beer heiress? This guy is out to get everything he can free. And do remember that anything he's ever said about reforming the "system," campaign reform, or anything other than rabid free-marketry is a result of his being caught trying to peddle influence in the Keating 5 mess. A truly intolerable bag of lying crap. Country First!!