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WASHINGTON — Republican presidential hopeful John McCain fixed his sights on Saddam Hussein long before President Bush sent the U.S. military to oust the Iraqi dictator in March 2003.

By David Brown Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 18, 2008; Page A04 In May, the presidential campaign of 72-year-old cancer survivor John McCain tried to put to rest doubts about his health by allowing a few reporters to inspect his medical records, but the effort has failed to quell questions about his odds of surviving an eight-year tenure in the White House.

Sen. John McCain's 2006 demand for regulatory action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have prevented current financial crisis, as HUMAN EVENTS learned from the letter shown in full text below. McCain's letter -- signed by nineteen other senators -- said that it was "...vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]...operate in a safe and sound manner.[and]..More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event that either...should fail." Sen. Obama did not sign the letter, nor did any other Democrat.

After months of watching Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama try their best to undermine each other's presidential candidacies, you would think they would have a hard time agreeing on the time of day. Certainly, they and their campaigns would have you believe that the "fundamental differences" – how many times have we heard those words of late? – between them are so great that it's astounding they can occupy the same stage without repelling themselves to the opposite corners like giant magnets. Well, think again. A recent examination by Thomas Voting Reports Inc. of nearly two-dozen key Senate votes...

Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator By Ralph Vartabedian and Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers October 6, 2008 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. As a presidential candidate, McCain has cited his military service -- particularly his 5 1/2 years as a POW. But he has been less forthcoming about his mistakes in the cockpit. The Times interviewed men who served with McCain and located once-confidential 1960s-era accident reports and formerly classified evaluations of his squadrons...

WASHINGTON: Pushing back hard against pointed new attacks from the Republican campaign of John McCain, Democrats on Monday unveiled an ad about McCain's role in a savings and loan scandal of the 1980s that they say has resonance in today's financial debacle.

HANOI - The lake into which John McCain parachuted after his Navy plane was shot down is now surrounded by chic restaurants, cellphone stores and motorcycle dealerships. The prison camp where he confessed to being a "black criminal" has been turned into a multiplex cinema showing garish American movies. A five-star hotel occupies the site of the "Hanoi Hilton" jail, where he spent more than three years. The surface-to-air missile sites that once circled Hanoi have been replaced by sprawling industrial parks churning out sneakers and television sets for the U.S. market. Hanoi and Vietnam have changed dramatically since the...

All D's on committee opposed including Dodd and Schumer in mark up. S.1508 Title: A bill to address regulation of secondary mortgage market enterprises, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Hagel, Chuck [NE] (introduced 7/31/2003) Cosponsors (4) Related Bills: S.1656 Latest Major Action: 4/1/2004 Senate committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably. Jump to: Summary, Major Actions, All Actions, Titles, Cosponsors, Committees, Related Bill Details, Amendments SUMMARY AS OF: 7/31/2003--Introduced. Federal Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2003 - Amends the Housing and Community...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Sept. 13) - Swedish broadcaster SVT on Thursday released a previously unseen film clip purportedly showing the release of presidential candidate John McCain to the U.S. military in Hanoi in 1973. A former SVT reporter, Erik Eriksson, said he found the video in the network's archives when he was looking for footage for a book he was writing about his experiences as a war correspondent in Vietnam. SVT posted the edited 39-second clip on its Web site on Thursday. It shows McCain stepping off a bus with other prisoners. He has a pronounced limp but is not using...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Swedish broadcaster SVT on Thursday released a previously unseen film clip purportedly showing the release of presidential candidate John McCain to the U.S. military in Hanoi in 1973. A former SVT reporter, Erik Eriksson, said he found the video in the network's archives when he was looking for footage for a book he was writing about his experiences as a war correspondent in Vietnam.

How do the Democrats come up with the statement that McCain votes 90% of the time with President Bush? President Bush does not vote so what do the Democrats base this figure on?

A recent Washington Post profile of John McCain’s years at the Naval Academy portrayed him as an unruly, fun-loving, under-achieving Midshipman struggling with his obligation to live up to his family’s brilliant military legacy. It was “a four-year course of insubordination and rebellion,” McCain later wrote. McCain graduated 894th out of 899 in 1958, five spots above the “Anchorman,” the lowest-ranking midshipman. In this respect he did uphold one family tradition; his similarly rebellious father Jack, who would rise to the rank of Admiral and was the Pacific Command CINC while his son was being held prisoner in Hanoi, had...

John McCain's Imprisonment in Vietnam: A True Tale of Heroism James Ray Have you ever heard the whole account of John McCain's imprisonment during the Vietnam War? Until recently, I was only aware of the general story; I didn't know the details. But I recently read a couple of pieces on McCain's capture, imprisonment and torture by the North Vietnamese, and it blew me away. Not since Ernest Shackleton's cursed journey to the South Pole have I heard a tale of such courage, mental toughness and physical endurance. The Young John McCain The Crash and Capture In October of 1967,...

Democrats have decided in their infinite wisdom that John McCain should not speak of his 5 1/2 years in captivity as a POW. It's as if they believe they have a right to decide when a man can talk about his own life. But it is his life -- and it is not their right to decide. Now some of John McCain's fellow POWS are speaking out on his behalf. Here is a video report about one of the men who went through the nightmare of captivity alongside John McCain - literally. Col. Orson Swindle shared a cell with McCain...

Kaus expects nothing less than a full-blown conservosphere freak-out over this. I’m underwhelmed. After his public conference call with Clinton supporters (covered extensively by Jonathan Martin) Saturday, John McCain met privately with some 75 of those supporters at his Virginia headquarters, two people who were there said… “He stayed for a good almost half hour afterwards shaking hands, listening to our concerns, talking to us,” said [Party Unity My Ass] founder Will Bower, who said he thought many of the people there would vote for McCain… Bower said he’d liked McCain’s answer on judges, in which he “pointed out that...

Now a senator who is the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee, Mr. McCain often points to his nine months at the War College as the time that crystallized his views toward foreign conflicts like the war in Iraq. He has talked about his studies as a tutorial in the hows-and-whys of America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. But the 40-page final paper he produced was limited to an evaluation of the military code of conduct through the prism of his “narrow, but personal, viewpoint.” ... Mr. McCain’s paper sheds new light on the experience that first brought him national attention and remains...

The Press: When it comes to smearing John McCain, the mainstream media don't sleep. Now it's "raising questions" about the disability pension he got for torture injuries as a prisoner of war. Where's the shame? Hard to believe, but true. The industrious beavers who "raise questions" about McCain's fitness for the presidency, citing his $58,000 disability pension, are this time from the Los Angeles Times. First, the Times' April 22 hit piece implied that, since McCain is in good enough shape to walk across the Grand Canyon, there's something dishonest about his tax-free disability pension. Second, it implied that McCain...

 Of the many personal accounts coming to light about the almost unbelievably cruel treatment accorded American prisoners of war in Vietnam, none is more dramatic than that of Lieut. Commander John S. McCain III — Navy flier, son of the admiral who commanded the war in the Pacific, and a prisoner who came in "for special attention" during 5½ years of captivity in North Vietnam.Now that all acknowledged prisoners are back and a self-imposed seal of silence is off, Commander McCain is free to answer the questions many Americans have asked:What was it really like? How prolonged were the tortures...

WASHINGTON (AP) - John McCain's Navy record boils down to a series of unadorned paragraphs that bestow upon him some of the nation's top military honors. The Navy recently released McCain's military record - most of it citations for medals during his Navy career - after a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press. McCain was awarded a Silver Star Medal for resisting "extreme mental and physical cruelties" inflicted upon him by his captors from late October to early December 1967, the early months of his captivity, according to the citation. The North Vietnamese, according to the Navy,...

The independent label sticks to John McCain because he antagonizes fellow Republicans and likes to work with Democrats. But a different label applies to his actual record: conservative. The likely Republican presidential nominee is much more conservative than voters appear to realize. McCain leans to the right on issue after issue, not just on the Iraq war but also on abortion, gay rights, gun control and other issues that matter to his party's social conservatives. The four-term Arizona senator, a longtime member of the Armed Services Committee, criticized the earlier handling of the war but has been a crucial ally...

WASHINGTON — When Bob Dole was running for president in 1988, top campaign strategist Donald J. Devine shuddered when John McCain accompanied the candidate. "We'd be all over them. We didn't want McCain on the plane with Dole," Devine laughed. McCain was too unpredictable, too respected by Dole and too likely to offer him advice that was at odds with conservative dogma, he said. McCain's never changed, said Devine, now the editor of an American Conservative Union (ACU) Foundation publication. Other Republican activists, as well as people who've worked closely with McCain, offer the same assessment: As president, they say,...

John McCain can deny the latest allegations all he wants. He can try to push back by blaming everything on the New York Times. And he can state, as he did Thursday morning, that in his 50 years of “public service,” he has “never violated the public trust.” Oh, really? How about back in 1974 when then Commander John McCain--fresh off his 5½ years as a POW in North Vietnam--was given his first command in Jacksonville, Florida? McCain, according to Robert Timberg in his book, The Nightingale's Song, was transferred to Jacksonville as the executive officer of Replacement Air Group...

While I respect and admire Sen. John McCain's military career, I wouldn't vote for him if voting were mandatory and his name were the only one on the ballot. He votes like a Democrat on all the critical issues. "Hi, I'm John McCain. I'm not a Republican, but I play one on TV." He opposed the Bush tax cuts, voted against them twice, not (as he now claims) because there were no spending cuts attached, but on the same class warfare grounds that the Democrats use. (The Congressional Record establishes this clearly.) He co-wrote and co-sponsored the worst restriction on...

<p>At a closed door meeting over immigration legislation, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got into a shouting match with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), telling him at one point, "Fuck you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room,"</p>

On the eve of primaries in Virginia and Washington, Republican presidential candidate John McCain ripped into Christian televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell yesterday as ``agents of intolerance'' who ``shame our faith, our party and our country.'' The blistering broadside -- issued in Virginia Beach, near the Christian Coalition's headquarters -- was a first for any Republican presidential candidate and a daring assault on conventional wisdom that has long held that Christian conservatives are vital to the GOP base. As McCain courted the Republican moderates, independents and Democrats he hopes will support him in today's GOP primaries, his rival, Texas...

Senator John McCain's lifetime rating of 82.3% from the American Conservative Union is often cited as proof that he is conservative. Here is a closer look at that 82.3 rating. First, a rating of 82.3% is not really that high. It puts Senator McCain in 39th place among senators serving in 2006, the latest year for which the ACU has its ratings posted online. For that most recent year in particular, McCain scored only 65, putting him in 47th place for that year. ... Generally, McCain has voted less conservatively in more recent years. ... So where did McCain differ...

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, reacting to conservative criticism that he has softened his stand on abortion, said last night that he believes the GOP ``must be an inclusionary party, and we must respect the views of others'' on the issue. ``I believe that the pro-choice community feels that abortion is a procedure that we would like to eliminate,'' McCain said in an interview with The Chronicle last night. ``So yes, I want to repeal Roe vs. Wade, and yes, I am proud of my pro-life voting record. ``But I'm trying to get to the point where we join together...

Senator McCain argues for immediate troop withdrawal from Somalia 1993.

Three senior US generals will appear before senators today to explain what they knew about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by soldiers under their command. The Senate Armed Services Committee will hear evidence from General John Abizaid, the head of US Central Command, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground troops in Iraq and Major General Geoffrey Miller, the deputy commander of prison operations. Their appearance coincides with the first military trials in Baghdad of soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. The officer who was in charge of guards at Abu Ghraib has said that the...

WASHINGTON, DC, March 19, 2003 (ENS) - The U.S. Senate rejected a provision to allow oil drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) Wednesday, despite an intense lobbying effort by the Bush administration and the Republican leadership to approve the measure. Conservationists, who have expended considerable effort lobbying against drilling in ANWR, applauded the vote. They consider ANWR the crown jewel of the National Wildlife Refuge System and contend that oil drilling would cause lasting damage to the refuge's wildlife and fragile ecology. The vote is "a victory for wildlife and all Americans," said Brooks Yeager, WWF's vice president...

A stinging rebuke from another prominent Republican quickly followed Sen. James Jeffords' departure Thursday from the GOP. In a written statement, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, blamed "short-sighted party operatives" whom he accused of targeting Jeffords. "Perhaps those self-appointed enforcers of party loyalty will learn to respect honorable differences among us, learn to disagree without resorting to personal threats, and recognize that we are a party large enough to accommodate something short of strict unanimity on the issues of the day," said McCain. "Tolerance of dissent is the hallmark of a mature party, and it is well past time for the...

In the past two extraordinary weeks in the Senate, Democrats and gun-control advocates accomplished far more than any of them had ever thought possible. But for all of the celebration, the package they assembled was still modest, falling short of the proposals President Clinton offered after the Colorado shootings, much less anything as far-reaching as a ban on cheap handguns. The Democrats did not dream of bringing up, for example, the President's proposal to limit individuals to buying one handgun a month. They lost an effort to limit gun sales on the Internet. And fearful that they could endanger final...

WASHINGTON, DC, September 22, 2004 (ENS) - The Bush administration and the U.S. Congress must work together to forge the political will to reshape the nation's ocean policy, the chair of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy told the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday. Retired Admiral James Watkins said the work of the commission "pales in comparison with what is needed now" and warned that time is already running out. The 610 page final report by the commission, released Monday, presents a troubling view of the nation's oceans and coastal areas, which are plagued by pollution, nutrient runoff, erosion, overfishing...

The National Rifle Association reports on the gun control bill that Senator John McCain introduced with liberal Democrats Joe Lieberman and Jack Reed. --------------- Introduced, appropriately enough, on Halloween, the McCain-Reed-DeWine-Lieberman gun show bill masquerades as reform but imposes bureaucratic restrictions aimed at eliminating gun shows. The legislation is based on the McCain-Lieberman bill (S. 890) from the 107th Congress, and, similarly, not only fails to address gun owners` most significant concerns, but also fails to address any issues within the National Instant Check System (NICS). McCain-Reed is not about closing a "gun show loophole"—there is no "gun show loophole."...

NARAL president Nancy Keenan emailed her supporters early on Wednesday asking for money for a campaign to begin bashing John McCain for his pro-life voting record on abortion. She didn't waste any time in launching the attack as, later in the day, NARAL issued a press release blasting the possible Republican nominee. Keenan said she's worried that some people on the conservative side who disagree with McCain on other political issues will make it appear to some voters that he's not "extreme in his opposition" to abortion. "John McCain has a 25-year record of voting against women's freedom and privacy,...

Following his wins in the South Carolina and Florida Republican primaries, Arizona Sen. John McCain has become the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination. He has spent the last year attempting to convince the conservative base of the Republican Party that he is one of them -- but his record in the Senate shows otherwise. Most voters know about his anti-free speech McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. His temper is legendary, and his mistreatment of conservatives and fellow Republicans has earned him accolades from the liberal media who lovingly refer to him as a “maverick.” And he suffered a blow to...

There’s a reason some of John McCain's conservative supporters avoid discussing his record. They want to talk about his personal story, his position on the surge, his supposed electability. But whenever the rest of his career comes up, the knee-jerk reply is to characterize the inquiries as attacks. The McCain domestic record is a disaster. To say he fought spending, most particularly earmarks, is to nibble around the edges and miss the heart of the matter. For starters, consider: - McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo. - McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching...