I know how… (AKA "Is McCain a criminal?")

I have had about 4 days to process the debate from this week. Overall, the candidates said nothing that I had not heard before. In fact there was only one thing that struck me strong enough to inspire this post.

Senator McCain seems to know how to do several things. During the debate, he mentioned that he knows how to fix health care, our energy crisis, Social Security, and Medicare.

Brokaw: The three—health care, energy, and entitlement reform: Social Security and Medicare. In what order would you put them in terms of priorities?

“My friends, we are not going to be able to provide the same benefit for present-day workers that…present-day retirees have today. We’re going to have to sit down across the table…I know how to do that.”

Later in the debate, when asked about fixing our economy, McCain suggested,

“I know how to do that, my friends…I know how to get America working again…I know how to fix the economy, and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, and stop sending $700 billion a year overseas.”

So, apparently, Senator McCain has a lot of answers. But one of his responses did not sit well with me. When Tom Brokaw asked about Pakistan and the pursuit of Al Qaeda in Pakistan, McCain strung together a disjointed assertion that he, and he alone knows how to find Osama bin Laden and dismantle Al Qeada.

“The point is that I know how to handle these crises…I’ll get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I’ll get him. I know how to get him. I’ll get him no matter what and I know how to do it.”

I can live with feeble-minded promises from political candidates. Solving an economic crisis is not just the president’s responsibility. The rest of our government must take action as well. Our energy crisis will take much more that a president just willing it to be solved. But I cannot accept McCain’s assertion that he knows how to get bin Laden and that he alone will do it.

Here is the crux of my issue with McCain’s grandiosity: If he really does know how to find, catch, or kill Osama bin Laden and he is not aggressively providing that information to the current administration and to military leaders, then he is a criminal on two counts.

First, he is essentially aiding and abetting a known terrorist, America’s number one enemy. If he knows how to catch him and he is not doing something about it now, he is contributing to bin Laden’s ability to elude us. This is not only criminal, it is treasonous.

Second, if he knows how to catch bin Laden and is only willing to share his knowledge if he is elected on November 4th, then McCain is essentially holding the American voter hostage, using our votes as ransom. This is unconscionable. This is domestic terrorism: holding our own people captive through fear and intimidation.

You can read the transcript of the debate on CNN’s web site.