The Politico repeated Cindy McCain's assertion that "[t]he day that Sen. [Barack] Obama cast a vote not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body," but did not note that Sen. John McCain himself voted against legislation to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Politico repeated Cindy McCain's comment about troop-funding vote without noting her husband's own vote
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In an October 20 Politico article, staff writer Amie Parnes reported that Cindy McCain “has used her son's service in Iraq to accuse [Sen.] Barack Obama of endangering his life and, by extension, the country's security,” and quoted her assertion at an October 17 rally for her husband, Sen. John McCain: “The day that Sen. Obama cast a vote not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body.” But the article did not note that McCain himself voted against legislation to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As Media Matters for America previously noted, Parnes' colleague Jonathan Martin and others reported similar comments by Cindy McCain on October 8 without mentioning John McCain's own vote.
McCain -- along with all but two of his fellow Republican senators -- voted against a March 2007 bill that would have funded the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and would have provided more than $1 billion in additional funds to the Department of Veterans Affairs. On the October 8 edition of NBC's Nightly News, chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell played a clip of Cindy McCain's assertion at a previous rally that Obama's “vote to not fund my son while he was serving sent a cold chill through my body.” But, in contrast to Parnes, Mitchell noted: “In fact, Obama voted against money for the troops once, in May 2007 -- he said because the bill didn't include a timetable for withdrawal. But John McCain also voted against a troop-funding bill two months earlier for the opposite reason: because that bill called for a troop withdrawal.”
From the October 20 Politico article:
In speeches across the country, Cindy McCain has used her son's service in Iraq to accuse Barack Obama of endangering his life and, by extension, the country's security.
“The day that Sen. Obama cast a vote not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body,” McCain, 54, told a rally in Pennsylvania last week, standing beside her husband of 28 years and his vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “I would suggest Senator Obama change shoes with me for just one day. I suggest he take a day and watch our men and women deploying.”