These people make me laugh and make me puke at the same time!
Today’s McCain campaign appearance song was the theme from Top Gun, “Danger Zone.” (Did you know that McCain was a fighter pilot/Pow?). This is the movie in which Tom Cruise starred as ‘Maverick.’ What a coincidence!
There are several ironies around this approach:
First off, McCain never flew fighter planes and never claimed to.
Second, The LA times is reporting this week that the Naval Aviation Safety Center deemed him a pilot of ‘mishaps.’
This report pretty much shows up some untruths to his stories as well. For example, John McCain wrote, in ‘Faith of Our Fathers’:
I crashed a plane in Corpus Christi Bay one Saturday morning. The engine quit while I was practicing landings…I took a few painkillers and hit the sack to rest my aching back for a few hours….I was out carousing, injured back and all, later that evening.
But the Washington Post accessed the actual Navy reports:
The official Navy report into the Corpus Christi accident on March 12, 1960, concludes that the AD-6 Skyraider trainer crashed because McCain failed to “maintain an airspeed above the stall speed.” It attributed the accident to “the preoccupation of the pilot coupled with a power setting too low to maintain level flight.” The single-engine prop plane sank to the bottom of Corpus Christi Bay. McCain was rescued by a helicopter after swimming to the surface.
The accident report excluded a series of other possible factors, including engine failure and disorientation of the pilot due to vertigo. It recorded pilot error as “the sole contributing factor” to the accident.
But the number one reason is this: The pilot who the whole Tom Cruise “Maverick’ character was modeled on, California Rep. Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham (R), is now serving the longest sentence of any member of congress in history (eight-year, four-month sentence for conspiracy, tax evasion & bribery). This man was no hero - he sold his soul to the defense industry, steering contracts worth millions to his co-conspirators. He even bought a $2.5 million mansion while he was making $160,000 a year!
Upon his sentencing, he groveled, literally in tears (watch the video):
The truth is I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office…I know I will forfeit my reputation, my worldly possessions — most importantly the trust of my friends and family.
