John McCain Quotes
I know the veterans. I know them well. And I know that they know that I'll take care of them. And I've been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans.
McCain, John. "First Presidential Debate." Commission on Presidential Debates, University of Mississippi, Oxford, 26 Sept. 2008.
The George W. Bush Administration had gone to war against Iraq for reasons that turned out not to be true, and then after a military victory with few casualties, botched the occupation of the country and a vicious insurgency developed bogging down the nation in its longest war in history. The major burden fell on the armed forces and their families. The hearings were in part examining the Bush Administration policies.
The performance of a number of Veterans Administrations hospitals and health facilities had been terrible and the some VA official had lied about the VA performance making it seem as though the performance was not as bad as it was in reality. There were some calls for the elimination of the VA hospitals and replacing them with vouchers. This was the official American Legion Response to a Conservative Congressional proposal to replace the Veterans Administration hospitals with vouchers whereby veterans would go to private physicians for their health care instead of VA facilities. Generally, the American Legion was quite conservative politically and in support of most Republican proposals, but this went too far.
John Sidney McCain III was an American politician, statesman and United States Navy officer who served as a United States Senator for Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama.
