John Mccain

Leonard Pitts' column appears regularly. His e-mail is lpitts@miamiherald.com. We are gathered here today to pay our final respects to John McCain's integrity. It died recently — turned a triple somersault, stiffened like an exclamation point, fell to the floor with its tongue hanging out — when the senator told Newsweek magazine, "I never considered myself a maverick." This, after the hard-fought presidential campaign of 2008 in which Mr. McCain, his advertising team, his surrogates and his running mate all but tattooed the "M" word on their foreheads.

My elementary school principal was fond of reminding his students that the last perfect person walked this Earth 2,000 years ago. (Note to the litigious types over at the ACLU: It was permissible to provide such insight in light of the school's affiliation with the Lutheran Church.) The reminder was typically offered whenever a misbehaving student admitted to a youthful indiscretion. Our wonderful Mr. Zielski simply wished to teach his kids that the human condition means mistakes will be made along the way, and owning up to them will earn forgiveness here and in the hereafter.

How workable are the presidential candidates' health reform plans? The strategies of Sen. John McCain, a Republican, and Sen. Barack Obama, a Democrat, are different in their approaches to solving problems and their potential effects on voters. To choose wisely, you have to do some homework. To help, here are summaries of their proposals, health care statistics, and online resources that provide more information and analyze how well those proposals might work. John McCain would ... * Eliminate current tax exclusion for employer-paid health insurance.

Sarah Palin says it's a lie. Her press spokeswoman calls it "sick. " Other supporters of the former Alaska governor refer to it as a "hit job" - concocted by Hollywood leftists and the liberal media. Filmed in and around Baltimore last year, " HBO "s "Game Change," won't premiere until next Saturday. But even mostly sight unseen, the two-hour made-for-TV movie about John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign has generated a torrent of debate. Taking on a polarizing figure like Sarah Palin already makes "Game Change" one of the most evocative productions of the year.

PhoenixIF YOU CAN call a man who spent five and a half years in a prisoner-of-war camp lucky, then John McCain, Vietnam POW turned Arizona senator, is lucky. More than a year after he was identified as one of the infamous 'Keating Five" of the S&L scandal, another war has given him a golden opportunity to salvage his political career.Ever since the gulf war began in January, McCain, a former Navy pilot, has been as much in deJackGermond &JulesWitcovermand on the news-and-analysis circuit as a retired four-star general.

Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir, by John McCain with Mark Salter. Random House. 396 pages. $25.95. John McCain's life has already inspired two remarkable books -- The Nightingale's Song, by my Sun colleague Robert Timberg, and his own Faith of My Fathers, both animated principally by his military service, during which he exhibited more bravery and resilience than all but a few can imagine. After his A4-E Skyhawk crash landed in the middle of Hanoi on Oct. 26, 1967, he spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, alternately taunting his captors and boosting the morale of his fellow prisoners with his irrepressible spirit.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- He is the poster boy of Republican presidential candidates. He was the youngest American president, maybe the most inventive, surely the most vigorous. But he was a different kind of conservative, and a different kind of Republican, than the caricature John McCain is presenting. Theodore Roosevelt was an exceptional Republican president, but he was also an exception among Republican presidents. Like his GOP brethren, he looked askance at waste in government. Like his Republican successors, he believed business was the engine of the economy.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's decision to suspend his campaign has left Howard County Republicans, like those across Maryland and the nation, with what may be a tough choice for some who don't consider Arizona Sen. John McCain conservative enough to lead their party in November. "I've said all along I'll support the party nominee -- obviously not with the same enthusiasm, but it will build. It's frustrating," said Louis M. Pope, Romney's Maryland campaign chairman and a former Howard County Republican party chairman who is now a Republican National Committeeman.

PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- In most campaigns, a presidential contender tours the nation, introducing himself to voters far from home. John McCain's candidacy has reversed that process.McCain's run for the White House is revealing to Arizonans another side of the man who's been representing them in Congress for 17 years: his tendency to fly off the handle."I was surprised. It wasn't something that anybody talked about," says Norb Wedepohl, clerk of Superior Court in Yavapai County.Interviews around the state this week indicated that McCain's hot temper was not common knowledge until news reports this fall publicized the issue.

A post-election postscript offers a chance to pick up where we left off on critical players in this historic election: Mac is back: In defeat, Sen. John McCain was a politician of striking grace and generosity. His warm tribute to President-elect Barack Obama recalled the John McCain who achieved success on tough issues such as campaign finance reform with compromise, respect and reaching across the aisle. His leadership will be needed in the new Congress. The Buffett factor: Despite Senator Obama's intention to raise taxes on the wealthy, 52 percent of voters earning $200,000 or more supported him, according to exit polls.

And the hits keep coming ... Yesterday, I wrote about complaints lodged by members of Sarah Palin's Alaska posse against HBO's "Game Change," a film about the 2008 GOP presidential campaign that is scheduled to premiere March 10. You should know that none of the people lodging the complaints, including columnists at Big Hollywood, have seen the film. They are basing their criticism on a HBO trailer for the docudrama -- and making wild leaps of speculation based on a couple of minutes of videotape.

I just walked out of a dark room after spending two hours with the screener for "Game Change," the HBO film about the 2008 Republican presidential campaign of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Based on a best-selling, non-fiction book about the historic race, it was filmed last summer in and around Baltimore. Since this is sure to be only the first of many pieces I will write about this film between now and its March 10 premiere date on HBO, I am not going to wait for the churn of images, sounds, memories and thoughts to settle overnight.

The politics-by-the-numbers game we play has been quirkily friendly to Mitt Romney. He was able to waltz into New Hampshire a week before its Republican presidential primary boasting of being a winner in the Iowa caucuses. He could do so despite the fact that he beat former Sen. Rick Santorum, a mere asterisk in the standings a week earlier, by the infinitesimal margin of eight votes. In doing so, and after spending millions in an 11th-hour effort to make up for his near-absenteeism in Iowa, he actually won six fewer votes than he had garnered in his second-place finish there four years ago. Until that late gambling surge, the former Massachusetts governor had pretty much kissed off Iowa as unwelcome terrain.

"I would find myself trussed up and left for hours in ropes, my biceps bound tightly with several loops to cut off my circulation and the end of the rope cinched behind my back, pulling my shoulders and elbows unnaturally close together. It was incredibly painful. " — Sen. John McCain from his book, "Faith of My Fathers" "[John McCain] doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works. " — former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum For the record, John McCain was learning "how enhanced interrogation works" when Rick Santorum was still trying to find a good acne cream.

For those who don't know, U.S. Senator John McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five years, where he saw up close the terrible, ineffective nature of torture. McCain has since spoken out against torture (aka "enhanced interrogation techniques") for these very reasons.  "In my personal experience, the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence, but often produces bad intelligence," McCain said on the floor of the Senate recently. "Under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear -- whether it is true or false -- if he believes it will relieve his suffering.

On the “The Daily Show” tonight, comedian Jon Stewart offered some advice to U.S. Congressman Ron Paul on his recent performance at the first GOP presidential debate last week. Stewart noted that Paul had already won several straw polls and could be a favorite for the nomination if he would just compromise his libertarian principles. Then Stewart played two clips of Paul criticizing the military’s use of secret prisons and of runaway military spending. “We do not need secret prisons nor do we need the torture that goes on in these secret military prisons,” Paul said.

YORK, Pa. - It was an entrance almost worthy of Madonna. As the lights went down inside the Toyota Arena late yesterday afternoon and spotlights swept the crowd of more than 5,000, the Straight Talk Express bus pulled directly into the hall. Out stepped the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, to rousing cheers.

WASHINGTON -- It didn't take long for Sen. John McCain to call a news conference the day President Clinton unveiled his new national security team.The Arizona Republican was the first member of Congress to step to the microphones at the Capitol and react (favorably) to Clinton's picks for secretary of state and defense. He followed up with interviews on CNN, CNBC, the PBS "News Hour" and the Don Imus radio show.Perhaps best-known for bravely enduring five hellish years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, the Naval Academy graduate has emerged as one of the Senate's leading voices on defense and foreign policy.