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Does McCain have temper tantrums?
wonderwhoits
Member Posts: 128
Note: If you google McCain + temper you will find lots of stories of him getting all huffy and puffy. Im sure most of it is very hard to prove directly (audio/minutes of McCain's own words)... but there's a sheer amount of volume of this stuff out there that lends it some credence. You'd think a POTUS should be able to control his temper no?
John McCain's top ten temper explosions
1) Defending His Amnesty Bill, Sen. McCain Lost His Temper And “Screamed, ‘F*ck You!’ At Texas Sen. John Cornyn” (R-TX). “Presidential hopeful John McCain - who has been dogged for years by questions about his volcanic temper - erupted in an angry, profanity-laced tirade at a fellow Republican senator, sources told The Post yesterday. In a heated dispute over immigration-law overhaul, McCain screamed, ‘F— you!’ at Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who had been raising concerns about the legislation. ‘This is chickens—stuff,’ McCain snapped at Cornyn, according to several people in the room off the Senate floor Thursday. ‘You’ve always been against this bill, and you’re just trying to derail it.’” (Charles Hurt, “Raising McCain,” New York Post, 5/19/07)
2) In 2000, Sen. McCain Ran An Attack Ad Comparing Then-Gov. George W. Bush To Bill Clinton. SEN. MCCAIN: “I guess it was bound to happen. Governor Bush’s campaign is getting desperate, with a negative ad about me. The fact is, I’ll use the surplus money to fix Social Security, cut your taxes and pay down the debt. Governor Bush uses all of the surplus for tax cuts, with not one new penny for Social Security or the debt. His ad twists the truth like Clinton. We’re all pretty tired of that. As president, I’ll be conservative and always tell you the truth. No matter what.” (McCain 2000, Campaign Ad, 2/9/00; www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHoXkCprdL4)
3) Sen. McCain Repeatedly Called Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) An “A**hole”, Causing A Fellow GOP Senator To Say, “I Didn’t Want This Guy Anywhere Near A Trigger.” “Why can’t McCain win the votes of his own colleagues? To explain, a Republican senator tells this story: at a GOP meeting last fall, McCain erupted out of the blue at the respected Budget Committee chairman, Pete Domenici, saying, ‘Only an a–hole would put together a budget like this.’ Offended, Domenici stood up and gave a dignified, restrained speech about how in all his years in the Senate, through many heated debates, no one had ever called him that. Another senator might have taken the moment to check his temper. But McCain went on: ‘I wouldn’t call you an a–hole unless you really were an a–hole.’ The Republican senator witnessing the scene had considered supporting McCain for president, but changed his mind. ‘I decided,’ the senator told Newsweek, ‘I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.’” (Evan Thomas, et al., “Senator Hothead,” Newsweek, 2/21/00)
4) Sen. McCain Had A Heated Exchange With Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) And Called Him A “F*cking Jerk.” “Senators are not used to having their intelligence or integrity challenged by another senator. ‘Are you calling me stupid?’ Sen. Chuck Grassley once inquired during a debate with McCain over the fate of the Vietnam MIAs, according to a source who was present. ‘No,’ replied McCain, ‘I’m calling you a f—ing jerk!’ (Grassley and McCain had no comment.)” (Evan Thomas, et al., “Senator Hothead,” Newsweek, 2/21/00)
5) In 1995, Sen. McCain Had A “Scuffle” With 92-Year-Old Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) On The Senate Floor. “In January 1995, McCain was midway through an opening statement at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing when chairman Strom Thurmond asked, ‘Is the senator about through?’ McCain glared at Thurmond, thanked him for his ‘courtesy’ (translation: buzz off), and continued on. McCain later confronted Thurmond on the Senate floor. A scuffle ensued, and the two didn’t part friends.” (Harry Jaffe, “Senator Hothead,” The Washingtonian, 2/97)
6) Sen. McCain Accused Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Of The “Most Egregious Incident” Of Corruption He Had Seen In The Senate. “It escalated when McCain reiterated the charges Oct. 10 in a cross-examination, calling McConnell’s actions the ‘most egregious incident’ demonstrating the appearance of corruption he has ever seen in his Senate career.” (Amy Keller, “Attacks Escalate In Depositions,” Roll Call, 10/21/02)
7) Sen. McCain Attacked Christian Leaders And Republicans In A Blistering Speech During The 2000 Campaign. MCCAIN: “Unfortunately, Governor Bush is a Pat Robertson Republican who will lose to Al Gore. … The political tactics of division and slander are not our values… They are corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country. Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.” (Sen. John McCain, Remarks, Virginia Beach, VA, 2/28/00)
8) Sen. McCain Attacked Vice President Cheney. MCCAIN: “The president listened too much to the Vice President . . . Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and, most of all, the Secretary of Defense.” (Roger Simon, “McCain Bashes Cheney Over Iraq Policy,” The Politico, 1/24/07)
9) Celebrating His First Senate Election In 1986, Sen. McCain Screamed At And Harassed A Young Republican Volunteer. “It was election night 1986, and John McCain had just been elected to the U.S. Senate for the first time. Even so, he was not in a good mood. McCain was yelling at the top of his lungs and poking the chest of a young Republican volunteer who had set up a lectern that was too tall for the 5-foot-9 politician to be seen to advantage, according to a witness to the outburst. ‘Here this poor guy is thinking he has done a good job, and he gets a new butt ripped because McCain didn’t look good on television,’ Jon Hinz told a reporter Thursday. At the time, Hinz was executive director of the Arizona Republican Party. … Hinz said McCain’s treatment of the young campaign worker in 1986 troubled him for years. ‘There were an awful lot of people in the room,’ Hinz recalled. ‘You’d have to stick cotton in your ears not to hear it. He (McCain) was screaming at him, and he was red in the face. It wasn’t right, and I was very upset at him.’” (Kris Mayes and Charles Kelly, “Stories Surface On Senator’s Demeanor,” The Arizona Republic, 11/5/99)
10) Sen. McCain “Publicly Abused” Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL). “[McCain] noted his propensity for passion but insisted that he doesn’t ‘insult anybody or fly off the handle or anything like that.’ This is, quite simply, hogwash. McCain often insults people and flies off the handle…. There have been the many times McCain has called reporters ‘liars’ and ‘idiots’ when they have had the audacity to ask him unpleasant, but pertinent, questions. McCain once… publicly abused Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama.” (Editorial, “There’s Something About McCain,” The Austin American-Statesman, 1/24/07)
Comments
ya hes blown his top a few times
However, dont believe some of those videos on youtube to be true. Theyre funny, but most are definitely edited.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
The temper is bad enough without even looking at the record of behavior that mattered.
The way he handled his personal affairs (pun intended) and business speaks loads of his character.
How about the irony of...
Google "McCain ambition" and you get his ad critical of Obama's supposed 'blind ambition' but...
Google "McCain memoir ambition" and you get his own words on his own ambitious motivations.
Full Quote (usually shortened to suggest a more recent time frame according to Snopes):
"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political forms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. I was sixty two years old when I made the decision, and I thought it was my one shot at the prize." - John McCain from his 2002 book Worth the Fighting For
[emphasis added]
Well, it looks like he got a second shot at "the prize" -- Wait a sec? Since when is POTUS a prize?
Do people really think he has changed so much since then?
I think this is the same McCain some of us, including me, liked in 2000- and I think he had us fooled then. This campaign has brought the real McCain front and center. Either that or it's a little bit of both, he had us fooled some AND he changed some.
I think this is the same McCain some of us, including me, liked in 2000- and I think he had us fooled then. This campaign has brought the real McCain front and center. Either that or it's a little bit of both, he had us fooled some AND he changed some.
I used to have a sort of an idle respect for the man, any remainder of which has long since dissapeared into a rather unpleasant haze as I have been forced to inform myself more thoroughly on his doings. Certainly he has changed some since 2000, but mostly in regards to the weakening of his own tenets in favor of becoming the figurehead and tool for others that he is today. His ambition, however, is not something that has changed.
In his own words, from April 2007 with Scott Pelley/60 Minutes (see final page):
"Let me bring up another issue that surrounded South Carolina in the year 2000. There was a political issue, a local issue about whether the Confederate flag should fly over the Capitol. You waffled on that," Pelley says.
"Yes. Worse than waffled," McCain acknowledges.
Asked what he means, McCain says, "Well, I said that it was strictly a state issue and clearly knowing that it wasn't."
"That's not what you believed in your heart?" Pelley asks.
"No," the senator says.
"What did you believe in your heart?" Pelley asks.
"That it was a symbol to many of, a very offensive symbol to many, many Americans," McCain says.
Why did he say that in 2000?
"I'm sure for all the wrong reasons," McCain says.
Asked what those wrong reasons would be, McCain tells Pelley, "For ambition."
______________
Personally, I see the McCain/Palin campaign manipulating symbols offensive to many Americans as tools to characterize their opponent(s), in this case using words like terrorist, radical, and ambition to energize their own supporters. I wonder if McCain doesn't believe in his heart that using these disingenuous characterizations is the wrong path to take, but I also wonder if he has the nerve anymore to take his own path at all.
2, 6, 7, and 8 don't sound particularly damning.
If you are not being responded to directly, you are probably on my ignore list.
He shows emotion. Big deal.
mccain gets mad because obama lies so much.
obama lies. america dies.
-I will subtlety invade your psyche-
I can actually respect that in a politician to some extent. It's better than acting with a big smile all the time. He's human, too.
Ok, so a few people seem to think that McCain's inability to keep his cool is no big deal.
Of course, some people still think McCain is a conservative, so this speaks to both fallacies.
I would like to call your attention to this article from The American Spectator:
(is it safe to assume that nobody is dense enough to call the Spectator 'liberal' ?)
Excerpts from Angry Old Man, Published 1/3/2008:
"...McCain seems almost constitutionally unable to disagree without being disagreeable. When he disagrees with somebody on just about any issue, he gives the sense of being so angry that he is having trouble not jumping out of his own skin to wring the other person's neck."
"McCain vociferously attacked Rudy Giuliani for supposedly being against the line item veto. McCain was wrong and Giuliani right that the form of item-veto at issue was dangerously unconstitutional legislation. (I write this as somebody who has been writing columns in favor of line item vetoes for a full quarter century. Even I, an item-veto supporter, saw from the start that the version supported by McCain was unconstitutional.) But right or wrong, McCain's demeanor was far too aggressive for the case at issue.
In short, McCain is an angry old man."
"SUCH REGULAR MUGGINGS of conservatives by McCain helps explain why so many in the conservative movement are unmoved by McCain's story of personal heroism, his stances against wasteful pork barrel spending, and his undeniable leadership on matters of defense.
In contrast to McCain and Huckabee, the three other "major" GOP candidates -- Giuliani, Romney, and Fred Thompson -- all actually governed very much as conservatives when they had the chance."
___________
Or how about this short video of him acting so presidential under the pressure of a reporter's redundant questioning:
McCain Loses Cool - Talks Over Reporter March 7, 2008 (No Cutting, One Clip)
"You do know it, so I don't know why you ask."
"NO, you do know it."
"NO, the issue is closed as far as I am concerned"
___________
That will work out great when he behaves this way towards world leaders...won't it?