John McCain

[IQ]

Iran government slams McCain for cigarette comment
Calcutta News.Net
Saturday 12th July, 2008

US presidential candidate John McCain has been strongly criticised by Iran for his remark that Iranians could be eliminated by the export of cigarettes.

McCain last Wednesday joked with reporters about sending cigarettes to Iran.

After being told that US exports, especially cigarettes, to Iran had increased, McCain said: "That's one way of killing them."

As reporters laughed uncomfortably, McCain quickly shot back: "I meant that as a joke; as a person who hasn't had a cigarette in 28 years."

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman told the local press agency the government regarded the remarks as ugly and immoral, "especially for someone who intends to lead a country claiming civilisation."

Early in his campaign, 71-year-old McCain also joked about bombing Iran, to the tune of the Beach Boys' song, Barbara Ann.

[IQ]

McCain jokes about killing Iranians with cigarettes
Posted Wed Jul 9, 2008 10:47am AEST
Updated Wed Jul 9, 2008 10:57am AEST


'A way of killing 'em': John McCain (Reuters: Amy E Voigt/The Toledo Blade)
US Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who once sang in jest about bombing Iran, has reacted to a report of rising US cigarette exports to the country by saying it may be "a way of killing 'em."

Senator McCain, known for acerbic comments and for sometimes firing verbally from the hip, was responding to a report that US exports to Iran rose tenfold during President George W Bush's term in office despite hostility between the two states.

A rise in cigarette sales was a big part of that, according to an Associated Press analysis of seven years of US trade figures.

"Maybe that's a way of killing 'em," Senator McCain said to reporters during a campaign stop in Pittsburgh. "I meant that as a joke, as a person who hasn't had a cigarette in 28 years, 29 years," he added, laughing.

He declined further comment on the report.

At a campaign meeting in South Carolina last year the Arizona senator, asked if there is a plan to attack Iran, began his answer with a variation on the lyrics of a well-known pop song, Barbara Ann.

"You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?" he said, then sang "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" before discussing what he considered Iran's serious threat to Israel and international security.

Tension is high between the two countries over Iran's nuclear program, which Washington says is aimed at making an atomic bomb but Tehran says is for generating energy. There has been media speculation of a possible US or Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

- Reuters

[IQ]

McCain: Maybe Cigarettes Will Kill the Iranians
ABC News' Bret Hovell Reports: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made an off the cuff joke Tuesday about cigarettes killing Iranians.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was asked about the number of exports going to Iran, specifically the increase in cigarette exports.

McCain looked surprised at that fact and in a line somewhat reminiscent of his "bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran" comment last year said, "Maybe that's a way of killing them." Then he followed it up quickly noting that it was a joke.

McCain made the remark during a visit to Primanti Brothers Sandwich shop in Pittsburg, Pa.

The senator's humor has gotten him into some trouble before. Last April he jokingly sang "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of The Beach Boys classic "Barbara Ann" song. That "bomb Iran" moment became a sensation on YouTube and Democrats used the video to knock McCain's temperament.

[IQ]

Caution: Can Iran cigarette jokes be dangerous to McCain's political health?
Eighteen months into a 22-month presidential campaign, actually his second time around, some might think presumptive Republican nominee John McCain would have learned to knock off the Iran jokes.

The Arizona senator got abundant grief last year for turning the words from the Beach Boys' tune “Barbara Ann” into “Bomb Iran,” and singing the altered chorus in response to a question from a man in South Carolina, who'd asked when the U.S. was going to send an “airmail message” to Iran.

But it seems the straight-talking Arizona senator can’t help himself.



Tuesday while waiting with his wife Cindy for cheesesteaks during a trip to Pittsburgh’s Primanti Bros., a restaurant famous for its thick sandwiches piled high with French fries, an Associated Press reporter asked McCain for comment on the news organization’s report that U.S. exports to Iran increased tenfold during the last seven years — with cigarettes ranking as the top export to Iran.

"Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” McCain responded. He quickly followed up: “I meant that as a joke, as a person who hasn’t had a cigarette in 28 years.”

After his wife corrected him –- it’s actually been 29 years since the veteran's last smoke -- McCain said he’d like to look into the Iran export issue more thoroughly and might have a better answer later.

-- Maeve Reston

[Rasputin]

The word gets thrown around a lot, especially lately, HERO.

The firefighters, who went up the stairs while others were running down to escape fire, are heroes. The policeman who got shot last night is a hero, soldiers who are fighting in Iraq are heroes, and the one that is really having me hit the dictionary lately refers to John McCain as a hero. WHY?

Why is McCain a hero? He enlisted to the Navy voluntarily mainly because his father and his grand father were both Navy boys. He knew joining the Navy means possible fighting in a time of war, which America, thank you very much, is almost always involved in some corner of the world. He knew going to Vietnam runs a risk of getting shot down, in fact he got shot down a few times before he got captured. He knew there is a chance to get hurt, captured, or even killed.

He went to fly planes and rain bullets and bombs on everything that moved in North Vietnam thousands of miles away from his home, when his country was in no danger and no one had attacked it. He was paid for the job done and due to his hard headedness and stupidity got shot down one last time and was captured.

Everyone keeps talking about the time he served in the air force for his country. That makes him a hero. How, exactly?

For that matter, any soldier in today’s America, who makes a decision to join the armed forces and goes to a country far away to fight a nation who never considered itself an enemy of U.S. and never attacked the United States and even the White House announced that there were no evidence leading Iraq to the attacks of 9/11, knows that he is going to a place where he may get hurt or killed. When he does not get killed that makes him a hero? He was getting paid for a job and he was doing his job. Part of his job is to kill or get killed.

Fire fighters job description and also the police’s include danger, high grade danger. They know chances of a building collapsing on top of them, getting burned, get hurt in a car accident or getting shot is a part of their job.

You never hear of doctors, nurses, technologists, lab technicians, and anyone who deals with death and disease as heroes. Why? They save a lot more lives than any fire fighter, police, and especially any soldier, so why not a hero label?

Does anyone have an idea what a medical researcher does hours and hours behind a microscope, sifting through tubes of diseased ridden fluids looking for a cure? Any idea what a doctor goes through trying to find a medication to prolong someone’s life? Any idea what goes through a chemist’s mind when he/she is trying to come up with just the right mixture of chemo therapy solution for a cancer patient? One that doesn’t kill the patient but allows him/her to live for a few months or years longer?

The word is being used and abused without too many of us even realizing what it means and how one becomes to be recognized as a hero.

Hero is a father who has to work extra hours and gives up his food for his wife and kids saying, “ohh, I’m not that hungry”.

Hero is a grandmother who gives up her life savings and her best years of her leisure years to look after a grand child or help her adult child who has fallen on hard times.

Heroes were the young men who went to the front lines of Iran Iraq war, for the first couple of years at least, and fought valiantly to save their mother land.

Hero is one of those young boys, in particular, that I spoke with in length in Iran. He was 18, the son of a decorated colonel in the army. Nephew of three uncles who had served in the armed forces in Iran and each one of them could have easily lined up a desk job for him to serve his two years of service. He told them all, “No”, “I want to go to the front and I want to fight for my country”. He was not a soldier of fortune -- he fought enemy forces on his country's soil and pushed them back.

To me, that is a hero. Quite a long definition, but I think the dictionary ought to have some sort of reference to a real meaning of the word HERO.