McCain An Admiral? Please.

McCain Media Mancrush Alert

Someone is peddling a demonstrable lie:

He had found a sense of purpose in an apprenticeship to some of the Senate’s fiercest cold warriors. And in Senator John G. Tower, a hawkish Texas Republican, he had found a new mentor, beginning a relationship that many compared to the bond between a father and son.

With Mr. Tower’s encouragement, Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral’s star to make a run for Congress, saying that he could “do more good there,” Mr. Lehman recalled. But Mr. Lehman knew duty was only part of the reason.

“He just loved it up there,” Mr. Lehman recalled. “Like very few military people, John heard the music up there, and he really wanted to do it.”

From prisoner of war to politician in a hurry, it was the turning point that started Mr. McCain on the trajectory toward the Republican presidential nomination this year.

After five and a half years of listening to senators’ antiwar speeches over prison camp loudspeakers, Mr. McCain came home in 1973 contemptuous of America’s elected officials, convinced Congress had betrayed the country’s fighting men by hamstringing the war effort. But in the halls of the Senate, he discovered a new calling, at once high-minded and glamorous.

This is the same John Tower who was such a raging party animal drunk he couldn't get confirmed as Secretary of Defense?

There was no way McCain was ever going to pin on an Admiral's star--he was known far and wide in Washington as a womanizing party animal himself. It's fitting that Tower would be his mentor.

The always unhinged Ted Sampley fills us in by going to Robert Timberg:

At the Academy, aside being known as a "rowdy, raunchy, underachiever" who resented authority, Midshipman McCain became infamous as a leader among his fellow midshipmen for organizing "off-Yard activities" and hard drinking parties. Robert Timberg wrote in his book, The Nightingale's Song, that "being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck."

[SNIP]

Timberg described McCain's advancement: "in the fall of 1974, McCain was transferred to Jacksonville as the executive officer of Replacement Air Group 174, the long-sought flying billet at last a reality. A few months later, he assumed command of the RAG, which trained pilots and crews for carrier deployments. The assignment was controversial, some calling it favoritism, a sop to the famous son of a famous father and grandfather, since he had not first commanded a squadron, the usual career path."

While Executive Officer and later as Squadron Commander McCain used his authority to arrange frequent flights that allowed him to carouse with subordinates and "engage in extra-marital affairs."

This was a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice rules against adultery and fraternization with subordinates. But, as with all his other past behaviors, McCain was never penalized; instead he always got away with his transgressions.

Timberg wrote, "Off duty, usually on routine cross-country flights to Yuma and El Centro, John started carousing and running around with women. To make matters worse, some of the women with whom he was linked by rumor were subordinates . . . At the time the rumors were so widespread that, true or not, they became part of McCain's persona, impossible not to take note of."

In early 1977, Admiral Jim Holloway, Chief of Naval Operations promoted McCain to captain and transferred him from his command position "to Washington as the number-two man in the Navy's Senate liaison office. McCain was promptly given total control of the office. It wasn't long before the "fun loving and irreverent" McCain had turned the liaison office into a "late-afternoon gathering spot where senators and staffers, usually from the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, would drop in for a drink and the chance to unwind."

Forgive the lengthy excerpt, but does this sound like a man who envisioned pinning on an Admiral's star? Once again, the source is Robert Timberg:

In 1979, John McCain came face to face with his future.

He was in Hawaii, attending a military reception. While there, he met a young, blond former cheerleader from Phoenix named Cindy Hensley.

McCain was immediately dazzled and spent the event chatting her up.

"She was lovely, intelligent and charming, 17 years my junior but poised and confident," McCain wrote in his 2002 book, Worth the Fighting For. "I monopolized her attention the entire time, taking care to prevent anyone else from intruding on our conversation. When it came time to leave the party, I persuaded her to join me for drinks at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. By the evening's end, I was in love."

McCain recalls that both he and Cindy initially misled each other about their ages. McCain made himself a little younger, and Cindy made herself a little older. They found out their real ages when the local paper published them. McCain was 43, Cindy 25.

"So our marriage," McCain cracks, "is really based on a tissue of lies."

Early in the courtship, McCain called Cindy from Beijing, where he was traveling with a Senate Foreign Relations Committee contingent. Cindy was in the hospital recuperating from minor knee surgery. She thanked him for the lovely flowers in her room, sent from "John."

What McCain didn't tell Cindy was that he hadn't sent the flowers. They were from another John, who lived in Tucson.

"I never thanked him," Cindy notes with a grin.

After a whirlwind courtship, John asked Cindy to marry him. But there were some details to clear out of the way.

McCain needed a divorce from Carol, his wife of 14 years from whom he was separated. After McCain's dramatic homecoming from Vietnam, the couple grew apart. Their marriage began disintegrating while McCain was stationed in Jacksonville. McCain has admitted to having extramarital affairs.

"If there was one couple that deserved to make it, it was John and Carol McCain," author Robert Timberg wrote in John McCain: An American Odyssey. "They endured nearly six years of unspeakable trauma with courage and grace. In the end it was not enough. They won the war but lost the peace."

In February 1980, less than a year after he met Cindy, McCain petitioned a Florida court to dissolve his marriage to Carol, calling the union "irretrievably broken."

Bud Day, a lawyer and fellow POW, handled the divorce proceedings.

"I thought things were going fairly well, and then it just came apart," Day later recalled. "That happened to quite a few. . . . I don't fault (Carol), and I don't really fault John, either."

In his book Worth the Fighting For, McCain offers his own post-mortem on his failed marriage. He "had not shown the same determination to rebuild (his) personal life" as he had to excel in his naval career.

"Sound marriages can be hard to recover after great time and distance have separated a husband and wife. We are different people when we reunite," McCain wrote. "But my marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine."

Carol, who remains on good terms with her former husband, generally has avoided reporters interested in hearing her side of the story.

She did briefly address her divorce to Timberg: "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else."

In the divorce settlement, McCain was generous with Carol, the mother of their daughter Sidney and two sons, whom McCain had adopted. Among other things, McCain gave Carol the rights to houses in Florida and Virginia and agreed to provide insurance or pay for additional treatment she was expected to require.

Except for signing the property settlement, Carol did not participate in the divorce. A court summons and other paperwork sent to her during the proceeding went unanswered.

In April 1980, the judge entered a default judgment and declared the marriage dissolved.

A month later, McCain married Cindy in Phoenix, where the couple would move. The wedding party included a couple of McCain's high-profile friends from Washington. Sen. William Cohen was the best man. Sen. Gary Hart was a groomsman.

Carol went her separate way, finding work as a personal aide to Nancy Reagan during the 1980 presidential primary campaign and later running the White House Visitors Office.


McCain for Congress
The move to Arizona was convenient for the budding politico McCain. After the 1980 census, Arizona was sure to get a new, fifth congressional seat.

But was it too convenient?

McCain explains the reaction of some of his new neighbors: "My ambition was plainly obvious, and to some, it was presumptuous and arrogant. If not said, it was thought by many that when I had decided to start a political career, I had looked around the country for a place where I thought the locals were gullible enough to take a chance on a novice. Worse, some critics contended that I had married Cindy because of her Arizona residency and her wealth and connections there. Neither charge is fair, and I am surprised at how angry I still become when some fool hints that such ruthlessness lay behind decisions to marry and relocate."

McCain truly was at a turning point in his life and ready for a new challenge.

He had a new wife. He retired from the Navy in 1981. His father, Adm. Jack McCain, died on March 22, 1981.

Politics occupied his mind.

According to Timberg's book, McCain actually had toyed with the idea of seeking a House seat as far back as 1976, when he was still living in Florida, but determined he probably couldn't win. After his Senate liaison duty, it became an obsession.

During his run for Congress, McCain dealt with these issues as only he can:

McCain confronted Mack after a subsequent campaign event.

McCain recounts in his book: "When the debate ended, I walked over to the opponent who had attempted to mine some little nasty opposition research from my failed marriage and told him with as much steel as I'm capable of demonstrating, 'If you ever try to hurt anyone in my family again, I will personally beat the shit out of you.'"

Sampley Ridiculous

I don't have anything to add, except that this is an excellent compendium of facts about Ted Sampley and his efforts to make money at the expense of the truth. Shadowy organizations and nefarious deeds seem to be his stock and trade. --Pale Rider

Ultimately, Sampley, Red Hawk, Inc. and Homecoming II were sued for copyright infringement by artist,Frederick Hart, and the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Fund for using the image of The Three Brothers on tee shirts without paying royalties. A judgment was levied against Sampley in the amount of almost $360,000. There are slightly different accounts of the dissolution of Red Hawk and Homecoming II. According to Susan Katz Keating,a reporter at The Washington Times who had written extensively on Sampley and his activities, Sampley told her that he had liquidated all assets and rolled the money into another 501c3 to avoid having to pay any part of the judgment.

Red Hawk, Inc was the for-profit business owned by Ted Sampley that printed the tee shirts and sold them to Homecoming II. Originally, it was a construction company Sampley used to renovate properties. The history behind these two operations can be found in the original story with links to original sources. Ted Sampley gives his accounting of these two in this piece found in U.S. Veteran Archives, Sampley's own paper.

Red Hawk, Inc. as Sampley referred to his business in the above linked piece, was formed on May 8, 1984. It was incorporated under the name Red Hawk Corporation by Sampley. Not one annual report is showing on file for Red Hawk and administrative dissolution was dated June 11, 1993. A revenue suspension took effect January 14, 2004. A revenue suspension prevents Sampley from conducting business as Red Hawk Corporation, until he settles his tax issues with the state.

U.S. Veteran Dispatch started as a news sheet and was originally called U.S. Veteran News and Report. Sampley wrote, edited and published it himself. He has been highly critical of the government by his own claim and has used the Dispatch to voice his political views. The close association with Homecoming II is questionable since it is a violation of the tax code for a 501c3 to participate in political activity.

Sampley defended the political nature of the Dispatch at one point claiming that it was owned by Red Hawk,

However in Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry he says something a bit different.

The problem with these two conflicting accounts of how U.S. Veterans Dispatch receives its funding is that Red Hawk, Inc. only printed the tee shirts. It was the Last Firebase Vigil booth that sold the bracelets and other trinkets that Sampley claimed supported the printing of the U.S. Veteran Dispatch. The vigil booth was the sales arm of the 501c3 and no monies earned from sales at the booth should have been used to support a political organization or newspaper. It was also possibly a violation of the tax code for the politically slanted news sheet to be distributed at the vigil sight.

In 1992 Sampley testified in front of the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIAs where he had some of his first confrontations with Senators McCain and Kerry. Sampley's intentions and tactics are questioned and a much darker side of Ted Sampley is exposed.

The year 1992 appears to be a turning point for Ted Sampley. In his biographies Sampley says he testified before the Senate Select Committee on MIA-POWs in 1991. Most of the hearings were held in 1992. Senator John McCain and Senator John Kerry were involved in the hearings and both drew the ire of Ted Sampley.

The Senate Select Committee on POW-MIAs covered many issues. One of the topics was fundraising of the POW-MIA organizations. Several were singled out as using unscrupulous tactics and having dishonorable intentions. Sampley's Homecoming II was among those singled out.

After discussing tactics and intentions, they turned to look at amounts raised. This is in the record for Homecoming II:

Homecoming II reported to the IRS that it paid Ted Sampley, its founder and the publisher of U.S. Veteran News and Report, more than $300,000, ostensibly for t-shirts sold at Homecoming II's stand at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Sampley has fought all efforts by the National Park Service to stop merchandising the t-shirts and other merchandising on national park property, and at publication time was involved in a lawsuit over his right to use the picture of the memorial statue without paying the artist. Another lawsuit, against the National League of Families, also is pending. Despite promises of cooperation, Sampley refused to provide financial records to the Committee for his tax-exempt organization.

Some say it was the questioning of his intentions that angered Sampley. The Boston Globe reported on February 29, 1992 that Senator Bob Smith (R-NH) and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) defended Senator McCain on the floor of the Senate after Sampley had accused McCain of working as an agent for either Hanoi or Moscow. The Washington Times reported that Sampley ran a composite picture of Kerry shooting an MIA with a caption claiming it was Kerry eliminating another man from his discrepancy list. On December 3, 1992 Kerry had Sampley removed from the hearings after he disrupted a speech from someone claiming that some POW-MIA groups were taking advantage of donors.

On December 12 of 1992 Sampley walked the halls of the Senate distributing his U.S. Veteran News and Report with the Manchurian Candidate article he wrote about John McCain. He went to McCain's office to deliver a copy and was confronted by a McCain staffer. Stories differ, but there was a scuffle and Sampley spent two days in jail and 180 days on probation. He was also ordered to stay away from McCain and his staff. The article mentioned above gives Sampley's version of events.It's interesting to note that Sampley attacks McCain and accuses him of colluding with the enemy while at the same time serving as an apologist for Bobby Garwood, a man actually court-martialed for colluding with the enemy in Vietnam. Sampley refuses to believe reports of McCain's resolve in the face of torture and months of solitary confinement. One last bit from the Phoenix New Time's piece on the behavior of the more radical POW-MIA activists like Sampley:

Stanley Kutler, professor of law at the University of Wisconsin and editor of The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, calls the behavior of these people "Sick. If it weren't so sick, it would be laughable. These are not nice people.

Once again, it is easiest to start the story of The Last Firebase Veterans Archive in the words of Ted Sampley.

On December 10, 1992, Judge Charles R. Richey, entered a judgement of $359,442.92 against Homecoming II Project, Red Hawk Inc. and Ted Sampley.

From a separate Sampley piece we find this:

In 1993 Homecoming II changed its name to the Last Firebase Veterans Archives Project.

Those are Sampley's own words on two different sites that he runs. However, he gave an interview for a book written by Susan Katz Keating. According to Ms. Keating, this is the accounting he gave her when she asked Sampley how he had been able to avoid following the court's order:

"I immediately put Red Hawk out of business," he said. "I sold everything they owned, and paid bills. I closed down Homecoming II. I heard that Scruggs was planning to levy the vigil site, so I gave it away. I put everything into another nonprofit group."

This particular version of the story, if true, lays bare another possible problem for Sampley. It is illegal to hide,liquidate, redistribute, assign, etc. assets in order to avoid satisfying a judgment. I have not investigated the laws on the books back in 1992/1993, so can't say with certainty that he was violating any laws at the time. Sampley tells other versions of the events as well. Here is one that is posted in the archives of the U.S. Veteran Dispatch.

...Regardless of the version of the story you choose to believe, The Last Firebase Veterans Archive was formed and still exists as a 501c3 charitable organization. According to the date/time stamps on the copies scanned for public view, Sampley has consistently been late filing the required 990 tax forms. In 2006 Sampley filed the 990s for 2003. These papers show an income in public money(contributions) of over $60,000.

Once a charitable organization receives $25,000 in public contributions it is required to become licensed to accept contributions in the state of North Carolina. To date, Sampley has not registered The Last Firebase Veteran's Archive in the state of North Carolina to my knowledge.

...Ted Sampley has put himself out in the community as the leader of a charitable organization. He runs a 501c3 and solicits money from the public and receives favorable tax treatment from the state and from the IRS. He owes it to the town of Kinston and to the taxpayers of this state to be a good steward of the money with which he's been entrusted.

Ted Sampley ramped up the rhetoric with the web site DefeatMcCain.com, to keep John McCain away from the GOP's presidential nomination in 2000. He resurrected his accusations that McCain was a KGB spy and "The Manchurian Candidate". McCain obviously took notice. Sampley might be a bit player in the overall picture, but the viciousness of his attacks is hard to ignore. From John McCain's book, Worth Fighting For:

Ted Sampley, a war veteran and veteran POW-MIA activist, who favored fatigues and feather earrings as his costume of choice, was quite a character. I took him for a charlatan within five minutes of meeting him. And nothing he has done since has caused me to change that opinion.

:::snip:::

Sampley had recently married the daughter of an MIA, who sensibly divorced him a few years later, but his MIA in-law status gave him claim to membership privileges in the associations of POW-MIA families, which privileges he would use to make as much of a nuisance of himself at their conventions as he did during our hearings.

:::snip:::

........ I realized that although he was detestable for his influence on families who wanted to grasp at anything, even his palpable nonsense, to nurture their hopes for recovering their loved ones, he was really little more than a buffoon, and that my self-respect wasn't threatened by his antics."

It's difficult to imagine what Sampley would have done if McCain had won the GOP nomination and had run for President against Al Gore. It's hard to imagine a man like Sampley, who will whip out his veteran status to save his own hide and illicit sympathy, attacking another veteran with the gusto and joy he seems to get from attacking John McCain and John Kerry. One thing is certain, these attacks are the only thing keeping Sampley in the larger public eye.

As the 2004 presidential election took shape, Sampley prepared for all-out war against John Kerry. He designed several web sites to help spread the viscious messages coming from the swiftboat veteran's group. Sampley told the Boston Globe that he was prepared to attack Kerry if he won the South Carolina primary.

"If Kerry wins the South Carolina primary on Tuesday, we'll be coming after him," said Sampley, a POW advocate who is organizing opponents to Kerry through a new website, Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, and who was rebuked by Kerry a decade ago for alleging that Senator John McCain was brainwashed by Communists while a prisoner in Hanoi.

The following is a listing of as many of the web sites as we could uncover.
www.kerrystreason.com
www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.org
www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com
www.impeachhanoijohn.com

Aside from the web sites, Sampley continued to heckle and disrupt events. He doctored photographs and spread them through right-wing radio(yes, even Rush Limbaugh described the pictures on his radio show), television and publications. One of the best articles that mentions Sampley's efforts against Kerry gives us this quote. It's by Joe Conason at Salon. Give it a read.

The Web site for Ted Sampley's Vietnam Veterans Against Kerry offers a pungent example of the right's rhetorical style: The Viet Cong's National Liberation Front flag is the background to a shot of a young, fatigue-clad Kerry. That picture is pure computer magic -- in other words, a fake.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell slammed Sampley on Scarborough Country in a 2004 interveiw. Media Matters has the video. For those of us who have not had the pleasure of meeting Sampley, it won't improve your opinion of him.

Senator John McCain was so incensed by Sampley's antics that he released a stinging press release.

"I strongly caution reporters who may be contacted by or are interested in Mr. Ted Sampley and the various organizations he claims to represent, and his opinions on the subject of Senator Kerry, or any subject for that matter, to investigate thoroughly Mr. Sampley's background and history of spreading outrageous slander and other disreputable behavior before inadvertently lending him or his allegations any credibility."

"I am well familiar with Mr. Sampley, and I know him to be one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. I consider him a fraud who preys on the hopes of family members of missing servicemen for his own profit. He is dishonorable, an enemy of the truth, and despite his claims, he does not speak for or represent the views of all but a few veterans. The many veterans I know would think it a disgrace to be considered a comrade or supporter of Ted Sampley."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

All of the information on Sampley was gleaned verbatim from posts made by Betsy Muse at the Website Blue NC. Original posts here, here, and here.