It’s the Final Countdown!

Final Comparison of Education, Career, Religion, and all around Character of the Presidential Candidates.

John McCain

Education

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High School

John McCain went to Episcopal High School, a private boarding school, where is his words: “I did not excel academically, but I enjoyed it immensely, and I certainly did not have the most number of demerits at Episcopal or Annapolis, but I was close.” He was considered a punk (known as Punk, alternatively as Nasty, in another variation, McNasty) and “prided himself as a tough guy, seemingly ready to fight at the drop of a hat”

College

He then went to one of the best Universities in the Nation, the US Naval Academy. While in the Naval Academy McCain was rowdy, raunchy, a classic underachiever and ambivalent about his presence at Annapolis. Admiral William R. Smedberg III, the Academy superintendent said of McCain and his own son Ted (who had to stay back a year due to academic problems) “There stand my two biggest disappointments as superintendent of the Naval Academy.” and eventually finished school 894th out 899 (5th from last) I have no idea if he got a degree, or what his degree may have been in.

After College

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After college McCain went directly into military service as an Ensign in the US Navy, he trained for 2 and a half years as a naval aviator, where he earned the reputation as a partying man. Early in his career he was considered a sub-par flier and was at times reckless and careless, crashing 3 planes, Naval aviation experts say the three accidents before McCain’s deployment to Vietnam probably triggered a review to determine whether he should be allowed to continue flying. The results of the review would have been confidential. McCain’s commanders sarcastically dubbed him “Ace McCain” because of his string of pre-Vietnam accidents.

In 1965 McCain married swimsuit model Carol Shepp, his first combat duty began at age 30 and a lieutenant commander, he received medals for his flight missions over Vietnam. In 1967 he was shot down over Vietnam and held as a POW for 5 years. Because his father was Commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam, the North Vietnamese offered McCain early release, because they wanted to appear merciful for propaganda purposes. McCain turned down the offer; he would only accept repatriation if every man taken in before him was released as well. Such early release was prohibited by the POW’s interpretation of the military Code of Conduct. “To prevent the enemy from using prisoners for propaganda, officers were to agree to be released in the order in which they were captured” This is military law, per Code of US Fighting Force, Code of Conduct Section III, items E and F.

In 1968 still a POW, he was subject to severe torture, where he attempted to commit suicide but was stopped by guards, After four days of torture, McCain made an anti-American propaganda “confession”. He was released on March 14, 1973. His wartime injuries left McCain permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head.

He returned to active duty and became commanding officer of a training squadron. He improved the unit’s flight readiness and safety records, and won the squadron its first-ever Meritorious Unit Commendation. During this period in Florida, McCain had extramarital affairs, and the McCains’ marriage began to falter.

McCain served as the Navy’s liaison to the U.S. Senate beginning in 1977, In August 1979, McCain was promoted to captain

In April 1979 he met Cindy Hensley and he urged his wife Carol to grant him a divorce, which she did in February 1980, and he Married Cindy in May 1980.

In April 1981 he quit the Navy because they wouldn’t promote him to Admiral.

After this he was given a job by Cindy’s father as Vice President of Public Relations (his only known non military, non political job), which he said himself he was unqualified and uneducated for. His father in law was also the beginning of his less than savory associations.

James Hensley (the father in law) was convicted by a federal jury in U.S. District Court of Arizona in March 1948 on seven counts of filing false liquor records. Hensley also was charged with conspiracy to hide from federal authorities the names of persons involved in a liquor industry racket with two companies he managed (which were owned by Kemper Marley) in 1953, Hensley was again charged with falsifying records at Marley’s liquor firms.

The Hensley family was involved with some of the most notorious—at least on the sides—some of the most notorious crimes committed in the state of Arizona, primarily the bombing and murder of Arizona Republic reporter, Don Bolles, and it’s on the edge, but it’s there. The key guy in the Hensley empire was a guy named Kemper Marley. Kemper Marley was a liquor magnate. He controlled a lot of the land in central Arizona. Marley was implicated-–—never charged—in the murder of Bolles, and it was Marley who basically gave the liquor franchise to Hensley back in the 1950’s, and that built their empire from there.

During this time he became friends with Charles Keating Jr (Of the Keating 5). and Fife Symington III (who was charged in a 1997 indictment for false statements to federally insured financial institutions, wire fraud, attempted extortion and false statements in bankruptcy proceeding)

In 1981 John McCain sat on the board of the US Council for World Freedom, an ultra right wing group chaired by Iran Contra figure Maj. General John K. Singlaub. The USCWF quickly became the US branch of the World Anti-Communist League (One of the major financial supporters of this was Sun Myung Moon). The USCWF began building support for the Reagan policy of aiding not only the Nicaraguan Contras but RENAMO and UNITA in southern Africa and rightist Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan. This branch has generated controversy, as it has been found to have illegally supplied firearms to guerrillas in the Iran-Contra Affair and, in 1981, the USCWF was placed under watch by the Anti-Defamation League, which noted the organization had increasingly become a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites

In 1982 McCain ran for US Congress and in 1983 won. While there he opposed creation of a federal Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

in 1987 He became a US Senator, where he became member of the Armed Services Committee, he also joined the Commerce Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee.

McCain became involved in the Keating Scandal, between 1982 and 1987 McCain had received $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates In addition, McCain’s wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter had made nine trips at Keating’s expense, sometimes aboard Keating’s jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating’s opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain did not pay Keating (in the amount of $13,433) for some of the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. In 1989 Phoenix New Times writer Tom Fitzpatrick opined that McCain was the “most reprehensible” of the five senators.

He was a member of the 1991–1993 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs

Since January 1993, McCain has been Chairman of the International Republican Institute

Starting in 1994, he worked with Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform

In 1995, McCain sent birthday regards, and regrets for not attending, to Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonano, the head of the New York Bonano crime family.

In 1997 Time magazine named McCain as one of the “25 Most Influential People in America”

In 1997, McCain became chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee; he was criticized for accepting funds from corporations and businesses under the committee’s purview

In 1998, G. Gordon Liddy’s home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator’s campaigns–including $1,000 this year.

Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as “an old friend,” and McCain sounded like one. “I’m proud of you, I’m proud of your family,” he gushed. “It’s always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.”

Liddy helped plan the Watergate break-in that would cost Nixon his presidency and landed Liddy a four-year jail sentence.

But Liddy’s career of inflammatory statements and actions exceed his Watergate actions.

While on Nixons Election committee Liddy concocted several plots, some far-fetched, intended to embarrass the Democratic opposition. These included firebombing the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., kidnapping anti-war protest organizers and transporting them to Mexico during the Republican National Convention, and luring mid-level Democratic campaign officials to a house boat in Baltimore where they would be secretly photographed in compromising positions with call girls

Liddy, on Vitenam:

“I wanted to bomb the Red River dykes. It would have drowned half the country and starved the other half. There would have been no way the Viet Cong could have operated if we had the will-power to do that.”

Liddy, advising Branch Davidians how to defend themselves from ATF agents during a radio show:

“If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they’re wearing flak jackets and you’re better off shooting for the head.”

Liddy, on the impact Adolf Hitler had on him as a child:

When he listened to Hitler on the radio, it “made me feel a strength inside I had never known before,” he explains. “Hitler’s sheer animal confidence and power of will [entranced me]. He sent an electric current through my body.”

In 2000 McCain ran for President and lost.

In October 2005, McCain introduced the McCain Detainee Amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill for 2005, and the Senate voted 90–9 to support the amendment

In 2006 McCain was named by Time magazine in 2006 as one of America’s 10 Best Senators.

In 2007 McCain voted in line with the president’s position 95 percent of the time, McCain’s support of President Bush’s position has been at the lowest, 77 percent (in 2005)

In Jan 2008 he said “in 24 years as a member of Congress, I have never asked for nor received a single earmark or pork barrel project for my state” but In 2003, McCain also slipped $14.3 million into a defense appropriations bill to create a buffer zone around Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, And in 2006, the senator teamed up with fellow Arizona senator Jon Kyl (R) to funnel $10 million toward the University of Arizona for an academic center named after the late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist

In 2008 John McCain is Officially Most Absent Member of the Senate, Voting even less than Democratic Senator Tim Johnson of North Dakota, who suffered a brain hemorrhage

McCain had actively sought Pastor Rod Parsley’s endorsement, who called upon Christians to wage a “war” against the “false religion” of Islam with the aim of destroying it.

McCain had actively sought Reverend John Hagee’s Endorsement, who McCain proudly introduced as an ally. McCain also spoke up in the controversial pastor’s defense, McCain then said he could look past Hagee’s bigoted comments. Hagee has said things like, Jews deserved the Holocaust for worshiping the wrong god, that Adolph Hitler was a “hunter,” sent by God, who was tasked with expediting God’s will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel. Hagee also said: “Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”

Religion

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John McCain grew up Episcopalian. He went to an Episcopalian high school. For at least 15 years, he has been listed as an Episcopalian in authoritative directories such as the Almanac of American Politics and Congressional Quarterly’s Politics in America 2008. He told a reporter from McClatchy News Service in June 2007 that he was an Episcopalian.

Suddenly, in September 2007, he’s campaigning in South Carolina, the heavily Baptist state where George W. Bush barely managed to stop McCain’s presidential campaign 8 years ago. And guess what? McCain tells a reporter “By the way, I’m not Episcopalian. I’m Baptist.”

Misc.

He told his wife “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c*nt.”

He told Senator Cornyn “F-ck you”

Told Senator Grassley “I’m calling you a f–king jerk”

Told Senator Domenici, “Only an a**hole would put together a budget like this.”

Told reporters, “I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live”

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Barack Obama

Education

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High School

Obama went to Punahou School, a private college preparatory school Obama on a scholarship from 5th grade to graduation, Played Tennis and basketball for the school (got the School Basketball team to the state finals) Obama’s coach says he remembers Obama’s drive, always pushing for more minutes on the court. He says that while Obama wasn’t the best on the team, he might have worked the hardest. As an adult Obama admitted that during high school he used marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol and described it as his greatest moral failure.

College

After graduating High School he went to Occidental College (also on a scholarship) for 2 years where he was considered a serious, articulate, intelligent young guy, his Professors said his analytical ability, as expressed in classroom participation and writing assignments more than rigorous study, made him someone to be listened to. “He was the kind of student that comes along and you say, ‘Oh, I wish I had written that or thought of that.” His English Professor said. “Obama as an undergraduate, in my mind, demonstrated that he was a serious, talented, thoughtful person who had concerns beyond himself” said his Humanities Professor.

He then transferred to Columbia University where he says “Mostly, my years at Columbia were an intense period of study, When I transferred, I decided to buckle down and get serious. I spent a lot of time in the library. I didn’t socialize that much. I was like a monk.” He graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Political Science specializing in International Relations.

Obama was accepted to Harvard University’s law school, where he graduated magna cum laude with a Juris Doctor and was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the Law Review’s staff of eighty editors. He was the first African-American to hold the post.

After College

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Between Columbia and Harvard Obama worked for a year at the Business International Corporation, and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.

After 4 years in New York he moved to Chicago where he was hired as director of Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization and worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988. During his three years as the DCP’s director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants’ rights organization in Altgeld Gardens

Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.

In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his Kenyan relatives for the first time.

In 1988 He entered Harvard.

Obama himself graduated with the legal world at his feet. He could have taken a highly paid job at a prestigious law firm, he was offered over 700 jobs, or a year’s clerkship with a Supreme Court justice, followed by an even higher-paid job. Instead, he returned to community work for a small firm in Chicago that specialised in housing, welfare and employment.

In 1992 He Married Michelle Robinson (also a Harvard Law Graduate)

Obama directed Illinois’ Project Vote from April to October 1992

In 1992 Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies

Beginning in 1992, Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years

In 1993 Crain’s Chicago Business named Obama to its list of “40 under Forty” powers to be.

From 1993 to 2002 Obama served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago

In 1993, Obama joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a twelve attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development

From 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation.

From 1995 to 2002 Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge,

Bill Ayers, who was a Vietnam War activist and member of The Weather Underground, bombed a statue twice and the Pentagon once (when Obama was 8 years old), and held a coffee for Obama in 1995 in his house, was one of 3 co-authors of Chicago’s winning Annenberg Challenge, Ayers also served with Obama on the Woods Fund committee contributed $200 to Obama’s re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate.

He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

He Also served on the board of directors for the Center for Neighborhood Technology

He also served on the board of directors of the Lugenia Burns Hope Center

In 1996 Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate

Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws. He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.

In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush

In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan’s payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.

Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, and again in 2002

In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee

He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations

In 2004 Obama was elected to US Senate. Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes’s 27%, the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.

Obama was on the Senate Committee for Foreign Relations

Obama was on the Senate Committee for Environment and Public Works

Obama was on the Senate Committee for Veterans’ Affairs

Obama was on the Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

Obama was on the Senate Committee for Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

He also became Chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on European Affairs.

In 2007 Obama voted 40% of the time with President Bush

Religion

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Obama was born to Atheist parents and raised in a non-religious house, as an adult he became a Protestant and was baptized at the Trinity United Church of Christ, the church or Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons have been considered reverse-racism by some people