Once a jerk always a jerk
by digby
Johnny McNasty talking out of both sides of his mouth — nearly simultaneously:
Mother Jones has obtained exclusive audio of an interview McCain conducted with military vet and citizen journalist Meg Lanker-Simons at the Republican National Convention in Tampa last month. In the exchange, McCain said getting vets back to work was job No. 1. (The jobless rate for former service members is up to 31 percent higher than for civilians.) “The fact is, it’s a national disgrace that veterans’ unemployment is 14 percent,” McCain said. “That’s a national disgrace. And we’ve got to try to find more ways and better ways to hire veterans. And that has got to be our highest priority.”
But last week, in floor remarks criticizing the now-dead Veterans Job Corps bill, McCain took a dramatically different stance. He declared that fiscal austerity trumped joblessness among former soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. “We already have six veterans job-training programs, but what the heck? Let’s, ah, let’s have another one,” he said in a sarcastic tone.
Besides the entire Democratic caucus, the bill got votes from five Republican senators: Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nev.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Olympia Snowe (Maine). But 58 senators out of 100 were not enough to overcome McCain and his colleagues, who filibustered and argued that the bill was election season politicking that still didn’t meet their budget standards.
McCain is just a jerk. Always has been. Despite his history as a POW and son of a famous Admiral, I’m fairly sure he could not care less about Veterans. The next war, any war, is what gets his juices flowing.
I think Jon Stewart dispatched this GOP hypocrisy on Veterans quite handily: