What does McCain mean by ‘we’?

June 27, 2008

There was a vote last night in the Senate on the war supplemental, which included the Webb/Hagel GI Bill. The spending bill, including the expanded education benefits for veterans, passed overwhelmingly (92 to 6), and will be added to the $165 billion that the House and Senate have already approved for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The roll-call is online; every Democrat, and most Republicans, voted for the bill. John McCain, as is now common, didn’t show up for work. Barack Obama was there, and he voted for the funding.

What’s especially interesting, though, is McCain’s response to last night’s vote.

For those who can’t watch clips online, McCain, campaigning in Ohio, told voters, “I’m happy to tell you that we probably agreed to an increase in educational benefits for our veterans that not only gives them increase in their educational benefits, but if they stay in for a certain period of time than they can transfer those educational benefits to their spouses and or children. That’s a very important aspect I think of incentivizing people of staying in the military.”

Is that so. McCain is “happy” to promote a bill “we” passed to help veterans with their education benefits.

You’ve. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

As regular readers no doubt recall, McCain opposed the Webb/Hagel GI Bill. He actively fought against it.

Remember this?

The Senate approved a $194.1 billion wartime spending bill Thursday that promises a greatly expanded GI education benefit for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan…A Vietnam veteran himself, McCain has opposed Webb’s bill as overly generous to veterans at the expense of career military officers and NCOs. McCain did not return to the Capitol for Thursday’s votes…

Indeed, McCain’s opposition nearly scuttled the bill.

What’s more, when the Obama campaign began hitting McCain over this, he got pretty touchy about it.

And now he wants voters to think he supported the bill all along? That “we” — by implication, including himself — increase “educational benefits for our veterans”?

Even by McCain standards, this is pretty outrageous.

“incentivizing”?

  • Will an enterprising reporter ask, “Mr. McCain, why didn’t you vote for the Webb/Hagel GI Bill?” I doubt it; they might not be invited to the next cookout.

  • RSA @2, McCain is a Maverick War Hero ™, which means that he supported the GI Bill. He must’ve. He’s a War Hero. And um, a Maverick. And anyone who ever presents you with things like quotes from newspapers, transcripts of speeches or video footage demonstrating the contrary is a Terrorist and a Traitor. Those so-called “facts” are irrelevant when put on the scale next to McCain’s Maverick-ness, his War Heroism and his five and a half years in Hanoi Hilton. The man SUFFERED for his country, folks. SUFFERED. He must be allowed to lie, however brazenly. Even to question his veracity is un-American, to point out his lies is outright treason.

    Hey, we’ve got Obama’s “height advantage” to freak out about. Let’s go talk about that!

  • CB, right as usual. This is appalling. Not that I would ever, ever vote for a Republican — never have and never would especially after the last 7 years — but that this guy is the best they can do, that he might somehow be the next president is horrible. Not that that’s any different from the other awful stuff he says. But still: the lying, the bare-faced idiocy, the complete unawareness of, say, video.

  • What’s more, when the Obama campaign began hitting McCain over this, he got pretty touchy about it.

    Wait till the debates, when Mr. Touchy becomes Mr Flame-out.

    I’ve concluded that McCain is stuck – he knows he can’t win, has a mountain of debt, and simply doesn’t care at all anymore what poo he flings around. The payoff? It underscores what a gimmick industry “the media” has become.

  • Whoa..wait a minute…the press should be laughing out loud at this nonsense. It would be the same as if Obama had said he was for the FISA bill all along and would never filibuster it…oh wait, …yeah that’s right.

    McCain opposes and actively campaigns against the bill, doesn’t show up to vote, and then touts it as an accomplishment he helped pass? What happened to liar, liar, pants on fire?

    It really gets confusing with all this flip-flopping, hypocrisy, and downright lying mixes together with senility I wonder if McCain can’t remember if he was for it or against it or if he remembers voting against a pay increase for the troops of any significant amount as well.

  • Typical politician taking credit for doing nothing.

    What’s this “we” shit ?
    It’s the same wannabe-participant armchair jockey mentality that says “Were winning”…wrong dumbass, our troops would be the ones who are winning, and the oil companies and contractors are winning no bid contracts.

  • It only matters if MSM goes after McCain on this stuff. My guess is, another pass for Senator BBQ/Mr Access. We can rage about it all we want on these message boards but the general public doesn’t hear a lick of it.

  • No wonder he and Romney are now becoming a lot more chummy. He’s adopted Romney’s habit of saying completely untrue things and then denying he ever said them a short while later.

  • And what does he mean by “probably”?

    Could it be he doesn’t even know what the hell is in the bill?

    Of course it could.

    If I put on my tinfoil hat it’s easy to imagine the MSM wants McCaniac in the White House so they can report on the last days of America.

  • To be fair, the bill was changed.

    But McCain still didn’t bother to vote for it. So his “we” BS is still BS, except for his BBQ buddies in the MSM.

  • McAce is having about as much luck with his flip flopping that he had flying air planes…

  • “I’m happy to tell you that we probably agreed to an increase in educational benefits for our veterans that not only gives them increase in their educational benefits, but if they stay in for a certain period of time than they can transfer those educational benefits to their spouses and or children. That’s a very important aspect I think of incentivizing people of staying in the military.”

    Are there ANY Republicans who are capable of speaking in complete sentences without making up words as they go along? I guess when you lie as much as they do, made up words sound real to them.

  • McCain is just using the Republican trick that’s been used on us since 9/11 – take credit for everything and take blame/responsibility for nothing. Remember (um, like every single day for 6 years) all the speeches Bush and Cheney gave where they touted how “safe” they had made us with their overreaching executive powers and the stripping of our civil rights? As if to say “WE are the ones who saved you – without us, you would all be dead!” It’s like the Republicans are all convinced that there are constantly trees falling in the forest, but only they can hear them. Personally, I wish they’d all stand a little closer to those trees…

  • “Incentivizing” is a real, commonly-used word, folks. Sorry to break it to you.

  • —“Incentivizing” is a real, commonly-used word, folks.—

    Commonly used, yes. Real, not really.

    One does not “incentivize”. One provides incentives.

    It’s like “leveraging” or “partnering”. You can’t just randomly make verbs out of nouns. There was a good Dilbert cartoon about this once, years back.

  • If anyone can provide a principled explanation for why a commonly-used word (which appears in my dictionary, not that that matters so much) is not “real,” I’d like to hear it. Until then I’m going to suspect that proponents of such arguments simply haven’t a clue as to what they’re talking about.

    In any case, McCain certainly didn’t make the word up.

  • Ah, that dear Senator Wee McCain… Cried “we, we, we, we” all the way home…

  • What does McCain mean by ‘we’?

    Why, the many variations of John McCain, of course. There are millions of cow-pies in America’s pastures; no two alike, but they all smell pretty much the same.

  • LOL, No doubt about it, McBush is the biggest idiot to ever run for Dictator ahem, I mean President. I honestly cannot see how anyone with a half ounce of Common Sense could seriously consider him. LOL

    JT
    Ultimate Anonymity

  • I think (and hope..) that he was referring to the caveat of transferable benefits. As in, “Hey, we passed a version of the bill that will keep people in the military as a career!” The “we” misnomer is still pathetic, but I could give him the benefit of the doubt as to which aspect he’s expressing happiness towards.

  • it would be like if Black Hole Mary planned to vote for McCain in November, but also planned to write “we did it, we took back the White House” when Obama wins.

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  • Just another example of a fake democracy at work. If this was a real democracy we would have real candidates to vote for, not clowns like this. This is pitiful!

  • It was a compromise bill. McCain wanted benefits to be transferable to family members; once that provision was added he publicly supported the bill. I wonder if the author of this article is simply ignorant or intentionally trying to mislead?

  • Behold once more, the power and charisma that is McCain! For those who enjoyed the word parsing of Alberto Gonzales, McCain is a master ninja.

  • Bob Dole thinks it is clear that Sen McCain was using the Imperial We. Take it from Bob Dole, if Bob Dole can talk about himself in the third person all the time and still run for president, McCain can use the Imperial We without you damn commies making fun of it. Bob Dole’s been around long than all of you, so Bob Dole knows.

  • McCain wanted benefits to be transferable to family members; once that provision was added he publicly supported the bill. — Mr J, @29

    But his “support” for the amended bill did not stretch to the point of… like… actually… you know… voting for it? Curious, that.

    Besides which, when he was still objecting to it, he never mentioned the transferable benefits; he simply latched onto those as a face-saving excuse, once someone else proposed them.

    So I have to wonder whether you are — to use your own phrasing — “simply ignorant or intentionally trying to mislead?”

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