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John McCain is clearly hurting for support from conservatives. The maverick senator's candidacy has been attacked by pundits from the Republican base viciously even after his nomination became all but certain. Rush Limbaugh told listeners to vote for Obama and Ann Coulter even promised to campaign for Hillary if McCain was the GOP nominee. In her rant against him she said he was wrong on torture. Now, when she says "wrong" about torture, she means that he opposes the use of torture. He would be "right" if he supported it, but McCain is a former POW who was tortured and abused to death's door, and his past record shows a consistent stance against its use by America.
This week, however, he did what most senators running for President do; he cast a vote to appeal to a certain target demographic rather than his own constituency or personal convictions. Even though he's been known to break from his party and has repeatedly described waterboarding as torture, he voted against a recent Senate bill aimed to limit the CIA's interrogation techniques and stop the illegal practice of waterboarding. He's gone beyond that and recommended that the President veto the bill and allow the CIA to go on using torture even after they have so clearly betrayed the public trust by lying and destroying evidence.
McCain is a victim of torture and an outspoken opponent of it's practice by Americans, so it's hard to imagine that this surprising decision was anything other than a spineless attempt to win over his conservative detractors. I wonder if his mama ever told him that if someone won't be his friend unless he tortures people, then he doesn't need that person as a friend after all.
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