McCain’s acts cost him respect

Once upon a time, I thought that John McCain was a man to be admired. I respected not only his courage in Vietnam but also his willingness to work in a bipartisan fashion in the Senate. But I do not recognize the man that I see now.

As the GOP presidential candidate, he has run a campaign of lies, distortions and misrepresentations stunning in its audacity — audacious because these untruths can be verified as such by anyone with access to the Internet.

Maverick? No. He has been a Republican team-player whose disastrous foreign-policy philosophy of pre-emptive strikes and domestic laissez-faire, trickle-down economics has brought us wars in two countries, falling wages, rising unemployment and the greatest financial debacle since the Great Depression.

And this 72-year-old man who has endured four operations for malignant melano-ma, an often fatal disease, has chosen as his running mate a woman whose major qualification is that her reactionary political views (attempted book banning, anti-choice, e.g.) would appeal to the Republican base. The choice of this woman, who is clearly unqualified for the job, is perhaps the worst thing that John McCain has done to us and is revealing of his true character, his naked ambition and his disregard for the people of this country.

Jane Williamson
Albemarle County