In my last post, I went after those that unfairly trash Barack Obama.

As I read the tweets from various people on Twitter and read the posts from various left wing blogs, I once again can reaffirm my belief that political left can be as vicious as the political right.

John McCain has been accused of being a racist, a traitor, abusive toward women, corrupt, and literally, not an American.  I’ve had three people on Twitter continually spew out hate filled Tweets about the man, much of it was rehashed half truths or twisted thoughts about the man.  Just as we see with those that oppose Barack Obama, we know see with the same with John McCain.  We’ve got people who will take any rumor or anything slightly derogatory and treat is as the gospel truth as long at is against the person they now have come to hate.

I’ve seen people try to portray McCain as someone who’s betrayed his own country and his fellow prisoners because he broke under torture from his captors in Vietnam.  I can’t imagine the horror of going through all of that for 5 1/2 hours let alone 5 1/2 years.  McCain, at first, had it easier than his fellow prisoners and was offered early release as a propaganda piece by the North Vietnamese.  He refused, keeping in accordance with the principle that those that first captured should get first release.  Upon this decision, McCain’s treatment became horrendous.  You can bet that his self-righteous critics, safely sitting in their living rooms blogging or twittering about how he betrayed his fellow prisoners, wouldn’t be able to stand a day enduring what McCain had to go through.

Not only do those that attack McCain on this twist history to meet their hate filled diatribes, they also ignore McCain’s brave opposition to the Bush Administration’s policy of using torture on prisoners from thw wars that we are currently having.  That, of course, doesn’t surprise me.

I’ve also seen McCain attacked because of his involvement in the Keating 5 scandal.  What he essentially did was attend a meeting called together by his fellow Arizona senator Dennis DeConcini – a Democrat who I almost worked for – on behalf of a prominent Arizona businessman, Charles Keating.  Now, Keating and McCain were friends and Keating had given McCain plenty of money in campaign contributions.  They had spent time together socially.  But in this meeting, it became clear that Keating wanted McCain to so something that was clearly unethical. Unlike, DeConcini, McCain angrily refused.  For this, his name was dragged through the mud and permanently tainted.

Many thought at the time, including me, that the Democrats wanted to spread the scandal around to include McCain because they wanted to have at least one Republican as part of it.  In doing so, they trashed two Democrats, John McCain and Don Reigle who were largely innocent as well.

What kills me is that many of the people who attack McCain about the Keating 5 had no clue of what the whole episode was about.  They probably hadn’t heard of it beforehand and certainly couldn’t name the other four.  But then again in politics, when you’re attacking someone, learning about what you’re saying isn’t important.  Attacking is.

Whether or not John McCain ends up becoming president of the United States or not is not the issue of this post.  The issue of this post is that John McCain is a great American who has sacrificed and served his country more than any of his critics could imagine.