Army Times: McCain Flip Flop or Fib?

Even The Army Times is kicking John McCain for his crazy attacks on Barrack Obama:

So where does McCain really stand? Some bloggers and analysts have suggested that he used the term “future combat systems” generically. Obama’s campaign maintains their candidate was speaking specifically about FCS, in which case McCain may be twisting his rival’s words.

Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute called it deceitful.

“McCain’s interpretation of Obama’s position is typical of the way in which the Republicans have twisted Democratic views in order to undercut their opponents and at the same time obscure the past positions of the Republicans,” Thompson said. “Future Combat Systems is the centerpiece of Army modernization. However, McCain has been more critical of it than anyone else in the chamber. Obama has been much more detailed and thoughtful in his comments about future military investment than McCain’s very superficial statements.”

Officials with the McCain campaign did not return phone calls and emails requesting clarification.

They manage to point to the reality that McCain had said point blank that he would scrub FCS completely from the military budget in the WaPo and now McCain is twisting himself up like a pretzel trying to distance himself from his own previous official campaign position on FCS.

And to make matters worse for McCain. He is is McLying AND trying to say Obama's policy on FCS is bad because he merely wants to review the program and cut some of the "wasteful spending" - you know? Missile systems and other pork programs that don't work at all or won't provide any more value than a bridge to nowhere would...

The reality of the Future Combat systems is that there is a constant evolution in the list of equipment that is wanted, needed, developed and tested as new wants and needs are pinpointed.

My unit was one of many tasked with testing a lot of the early FCS equipment that is now in use today. On paper a lot of the equipment sounded great. In the field some of these systems might prove to be invaluable while others would be deemed pure junk and useless. Either they couldn't build something rugged enough, or the technology needed to function properly was still out of the engineers' grasp.

There is not an American I know that wants soldiers to have anything less than the best equipment available to them. But neither soldier nor civilian wants to see our government flushing money down the drain on junk or useless programs when there are so many equipment shortcomings on even the basic equipment a soldier needs to function. Except for, apparently, John McCain. Either he wants to scrub the entire FCS program as he has stated earlier... Or he thinks we should be wasting our money on useless programs now.

Either way McCain shows a clear lack of understanding - much like he shows a complete lack of understanding of foreign policy and the economy - on the direction of today's military.