When Bush sic'ed Karl Rove on McCain during the primaries back in 2000 and tried to smear by putting out rumors that McCain's time in captivity had made him "crazy" McCain didn't fight back. When Rove's operatives put out stories about McCain's "love child" McCain didn't fight back. In 2004 when John Kerry was being vilified for inflating his combat record (Charges later proved absolutely false by the United States Navy and by his own boat crew, save for one disgruntled moron) McCain would not stand by fellow veteran John Kerry, weakly admonishing the Swiftboat liars that maybe they shouldn't treat Kerry like that (wink wink).

Not all people who go to war and come home deserve the laurel wreath. Some of them are real bastards. Ollie North for instance. He wiped his ass on our Constitution and our laws then stood there piously in his Marine uniform and lied to Congress under oath.

McCain is a self-aggrandizing little jerk who squandered whatever honor he earned as a combat veteran because he turned his back on other combat veterans and he still does.

When he pranced through an open air market in Baghdad to buy a rug, cameras and reporters in tow, for a photo op to carry on the obvious and blatant lie that Baghdad was so safe and quiet you could stroll down any tree-lined street, McCain was knowingly perpetuating a damned lie and creating propaganda. Ask the whole brigade of U.S. Army soldiers who were pulled off other duty around Iraq to secure the area and provide fire support for McCain's little one-block cakewalk if they felt like Baghdad was secure. McCain put those men and women in mortal danger so that he could get a photo op.

McCain has used this Iraq War for his own political games and he is every bit as disgusting as his feckless little war-dodging hero, Bush.

Fortunately for all of us, McCain is going nowhere in this presidential race. He had his little moment in New Hampshire and now it's just a matter of Super Tuesday's primaries to bring him back down to earth.

I recommend it to all Salonians who want to see what has happened at Walter Reed since the big shakeup. Answer: Not much. Despite all the directives from the Pentagon and all the officers relieved of command at Walter Reed and elsewhere because they refuse to change and see the suffering of the soldiers in their command, the old culture of mental illness as a weakness or malingering, is still firmly in place.

This is an excerpt from the Washington Post's Internet edition this morning. I urge you all to read the entire story and watch the video.

'A Soldier's Officer'

By Dana Priest and Anne Hull

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, December 2, 2007 Page 1.

"In a nondescript conference room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside listened last week as an Army prosecutor outlined the criminal case against her in a preliminary hearing. The charges: attempting suicide and endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq.

Her hands trembled as Maj. Stefan Wolfe, the prosecutor, argued that Whiteside, now a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed, should be court-martialed. After seven years of exemplary service, the 25-year-old Army reservist faces the possibility of life in prison if she is tried and convicted.

"Military psychiatrists at Walter Reed who examined Whiteside after she recovered from her self-inflicted gunshot wound diagnosed her with a severe mental disorder, possibly triggered by the stresses of a war zone. But Whiteside's superiors considered her mental illness "an excuse" for criminal conduct, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

"At the hearing, Wolfe, who had already warned Whiteside's lawyer of the risk of using a "psychobabble" defense, pressed a senior psychiatrist at Walter Reed to justify his diagnosis.

""I'm not here to play legal games," Col. George Brandt responded angrily, according to a recording of the hearing. "I am here out of the genuine concern for a human being that's breaking and that is broken. She has a severe and significant illness. Let's treat her as a human being, for Christ's sake!"

"In recent months, prodded by outrage over poor conditions at Walter Reed, the Army has made a highly publicized effort to improve treatment of Iraq veterans and change a culture that stigmatizes mental illness. The Pentagon has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to new research and to care for soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, and on Friday it announced that it had opened a new center for psychological health in Rosslyn.

"But outside the Pentagon, the military still largely deals with mental health issues in an ad hoc way, often relying on the judgment of combat-hardened commanders whose understanding of mental illness is vague or misinformed. The stigma around psychological wounds can still be seen in the smallest of Army policies. While family members of soldiers recovering at Walter Reed from physical injuries are provided free lodging and a per diem to care for their loved ones, families of psychiatric outpatients usually have to pay their own way.

""It's a disgrace," said Tom Whiteside, a former Marine and retired federal law enforcement officer who lost his free housing after his daughter's physical wounds had healed enough that she could be moved to the psychiatric ward. A charity organization, the Yellow Ribbon Fund, provides him with an apartment near Walter Reed so he can be near his daughter.""

------end quote------ Read the rest of the story at Washington Post website.

What's the matter, did I strike a nerve?