Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Senator: McCain's military roots limit him

|
|
 
  
Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, presumptive Republican presidential candidate gestures during a town hall meeting at the Mizel Family Cultural Arts Center in Denver on May 2, 2008. Sen. McCain concludes his "Call to Action Tour" with his Denver campaign stop. (UPI Photo/Gary C. Caskey) 
License photo
Published: May 16, 2008 at 6:40 PM

WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- GOP presidential hopeful John McCain sees "everything" through his experience in the military and that can be "dangerous," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Friday.

Harkin said the Arizona senator "has a hard time thinking beyond" his extensive military background, The Des Moines (Iowa) Register reported.

"Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous," Harkin said in a conference call with reporters.

McCain graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958 and served in the U.S. Navy as a pilot. He was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five and a half years and is the son and grandson of U.S. Navy admirals.

"It's one thing to have been drafted and served," Harkin said, "but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that's just how you're steeped, how you've learned, how you've grown up."

McCain currently serves as the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Neither of the Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois nor Hillary Clinton of New York, has served in the military.

Topics: Barack Obama, Tom Harkin, Hillary Rodham Clinton
Recommended Stories
© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 20
Singer Janelle Monae arrives at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards in Universal City, California
View Caption
Singer Janelle Monae arrives for the MTV Movie Awards at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California. UPI/Jim Ruymen
fark
Man turns dead pet cat into remote-controlled helicopter, calls it art (w/WTF pics)
"Good News" clubs teach children in public schools the Biblical importance of killing all nonbelievers...
Five arrested in prostitution sting. Article lists their names, ages and distance from a church
Photoshop this power tower technician
Driving drunk and unlicensed, with a kid not even buckled let alone in a safety seat, en route to...
Man killed in Spencer fire. The lava lamps must have ignited the blacklight posters