What about McCain’s Terrorist Sympathizer Pals?
I know Gordon Liddy, he’s paid his debt, he went to prison, he paid his debt, as people do. I’m not in any way embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy.
Frankly, I’m underwhelmed with David Letterman’s performance last night. Yeah, yeah, Letterman actually put McCain on the spot about his ties to Gordon Liddy. But Letterman didn’t have the proper rejoinder to McCain’s claim that Liddy has paid for his crime–that (like Ayers) Liddy has no remorse for those crimes.
Does he regret burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and setting in chain the resignation of a President? A vein twitches angrily on one of his scales, but he replies in a level voice, "No."
Letterman should also have pointed out that the only reason Ayers didn’t "pay his debt" is because the federal government was engaging in the same kind of illegal surveillance that McCain has supported under the Bush Administration and so couldn’t convict Ayers.
But since Letterman did bust McCain for Palin’s claim that Obama "palled around" with terrorists, plural, it’s probably worth pointing out the number of terrorists McCain pals around with.
The media has already talked about McCain’s ties to John Singlaub and the US Council for World Freedom, which had ties to Nazi collaborators and right-wing death squads. McCain claims to have resigned the board in 1984–though he remained supportive until 1986. And he attended the group’s events after the time, in 1984, when Jack Anderson (whom Gordon Liddy plotted to kill) exposed the group’s ties to far-right radicals.
A news article and two documents tie McCain to the council in 1985, a year after he says he resigned. The group’s Internal Revenue Service filing in 1985, covering the previous year, lists McCain as a member of the council’s advisory board. In October 1985, a States News Service report placed McCain, Rep. Tom Loeffler, R-Texas, and an Arizona congressman at a Washington awards ceremony staged by the council.
This was McCain palling around with right-wing extremists who served as a front to supply funds to terrorists.
And then there’s Carl Lindner, the CEO of Chiquita during a period when it was knowingly providing material support to terrorists in Colombia, first FARC and then AUC. Read more →