Link for this Post: Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator Three crashes early in his career led Navy officials to question or fault his judgment By Ralph Vartabedian and Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times

According to the authors of this feature story in todays LA times, Here is an excerpt from the story:

McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. "The engine quit while I was practicing landings," he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure.

The 23-year-old junior lieutenant wasn't paying attention and erred in using "a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn," investigators concluded.

The crash was one of three early in McCain's aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials.

In his most serious lapse, McCain was "clowning" around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout, according to McCain's own account as well as those of naval officers and enlistees aboard the carrier Intrepid. In another incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia.

After McCain was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967. Three months later, he was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and taken prisoner. He was not faulted in either of those cases and was later lauded for his heroism as a prisoner of war.

Read the entire story at the link at the top of this post.

Photo via LA Times: This photo provided by the Library of Congress shows John McCain, front right, with his squadron in 1965.

As a presidential candidate, McCain has cited his military service -- particularly his 5 1/2 years as a POW. But he has been less forthcoming about his mistakes in the cockpit.

Link for this Post: Arizonans recall run-ins with McCain Opinions about temper depend on who's talking By ALAN MAIMON Review-Journal

Everyone has heard stories about current Presidential Candidate John McCain's temper. This article in my hometown newspaper adds more fodder to the McCain temper folder. Here is a short excerpt:

From environmental activists to former high-ranking Republican officials in his home state, a diverse group of Arizonans have vivid memories of heated skirmishes with the Republican presidential candidate.

The flare-ups started in the late 1980s, around the time that McCain and four other senators were under investigation for improper relationships with Charles Keating Jr., an Arizonan who oversaw a failed savings and loan institution.

As the Keating Five scandal played out in national headlines, McCain, on a much smaller stage, fought for what eventually became the world's largest optical telescope.

But for years, work on the Mount Graham International Observatory was delayed over concerns -- many later proved legitimate -- that the project could jeopardize a species of red squirrel and encroach upon land considered sacred by American Indian tribes.

The Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, was called on by McCain and Sen. Dennis DeConcini, an Arizona Democrat, to study the project.

In an interview with the Review-Journal, former GAO manager Joe Gibbons said McCain proceeded to interfere with the agency's work, "going bananas" and "steamrolling the GAO" to get his way.

McCain had already shown a willingness to throw his weight around, according to some involved in the Mount Graham project.

At one point, he targeted Jim Abbott, a U.S. Forest Service supervisor he blamed for slowing progress on the observatory.

McCain was alleged at the time to have told Abbott that he would be "the shortest-tenured forest supervisor in the history of the Forest Service" if he didn't help the project move forward.

Federal law prohibits threats that obstruct or impede the work of federal employees.

Read the entire article via the link at the top of this post.

Links for this Post:

KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis Website Additional Information

Download the Keating Economics Documentary as a high quality .mov file (playing time 17 minutes)

Keating Economics: John McCain and a Financial Crisis on YouTube (embedded below)

Here are some excerpts from the Keating Economics website:

The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association.

Learn about a part of history that some wish we could just forget. Keating Economics: the Making of a Financial Crisis is a new in depth documentary exploring the causes and people involved in the Keating Five Scandal.

In addition to the 17 minute mini-documentary, the site features a wealth of research and links to websites with more resources.

Rousing; the real deal.

via edward_winkleman :

This speech is remarkable and long overdue:

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Palin Flow, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

thanks Ardele!

Watch the video.... then register if you haven't.

My friend Ramon Sender sent me this YouTube Video which is part of a series of non-partisan spots created by  DiCaprios Appian Way production group. Here is what is written about it on YouTube:

Whitaker have created public service announcements to encourage American youth to register to vote. The non-partisan PSAs, produced by DiCaprios Appian Way, were created to engage and inspire young people to register and vote and participate in the upcoming election. Celebrities appearing in the PSAs include: Amy Adams, will.i.am, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Bacon, Halle Berry, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Connolly, Courteney Cox, Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Jonah Hill, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Kiedis, Ashton Kutcher, Adam Levine, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Tobey Maguire, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi, Ethan Suplee, Kyra Sedgwick, Michelle Trachtenberg, Usher, and Forest Whitake

So remember to tell 5 friends, DON'T VOTE!!

Link for this Post: The 3 A.M. Call By Paul Krugman Op-Ed in the New York Times

This article was written BEFORE THE BAILOUT FAILED but still has some good stuff worth thinking about. It begins:

It’s 3 a.m., a few months into 2009, and the phone in the White House rings. Several big hedge funds are about to fail, says the voice on the line, and there’s likely to be chaos when the market opens. Whom do you trust to take that call?

I’m not being melodramatic. The bailout plan released yesterday is a lot better than the proposal Henry Paulson first put out — sufficiently so to be worth passing. But it’s not what you’d actually call a good plan, and it won’t end the crisis. The odds are that the next president will have to deal with some major financial emergencies.

So what do we know about the readiness of the two men most likely to end up taking that call? Well, Barack Obama seems well informed and sensible about matters economic and financial. John McCain, on the other hand, scares me.

Read the rest via the link at the top of this post.