Rockefeller’s idiotic comment is as classless as asking the Senator just how pretty his sister-in-law was… before she was brutally murdered.

Jay Rockefeller is an arrogant, self-righteous pig!

There is a delicious irony in Senator Rockefeller--who has never worn a uniform--presuming to lecture a decorated combat veteran and POW on the after-effects of war.

Besides, as his fellow POW noted in the article, McCain was NOT at 35000 feet, nor had anyone invented the laser guided bomb at the time--things that Rockefeller MIGHT have known if he’d actually been PAYING ATTENTION at those hearings about military budgets for the past 23 YEARS.

Laser guided bombs?  In 1967?  And I don’t think that the A4 was ever set up for precision guided bombs.

Not only is Rockefeller an ass he’s a moron besides.

Senator McCain should ask Senator Rockefeller for an apology.  Unless the person is acting in an official capacity for a campaign he should not be asked to apologize.  That goes for both sides.  That would take too much time.

Rockefeller issued a formal apology this afternoon and called McCain.

Amen to that, Brother Rob.

Prolly not definitive:
Can the A-4 skyhawk use GBU laser guided bombs?

The Texas Instruments BOLT-117 (BOmb, Laser Terminal-117), also known as the GBU-1/B[1] was the world’s first laser guided bomb (LGB). It consisted of a standard M117 750-pound bomb case with a KMU-342 laser guidance and control kit. It was commissioned by the United States Air Force in 1967 and successfully completed a combat evaluation in 1968. Only a limited number of BOLT-117 bombs were produced before it was discontinued in favour of a more powerful LGB, the 2,000-pound GBU-10. The larger bomb had proven twice as accurate and had far more explosive power.

The impact of the BOLT-117 on airpower was revolutionary. Laser guidance kits turned standard “dumb” ordnance into “smart bombs,” yielding a 100-fold increase in effectiveness compared with free-falling, unguided bombs.

Even so, probably not in use while McCain was driving a fast mover.

The Soviets and Chi-Coms were supplying the North Vietnamese with air defense.

The United States enjoyed total air supremacy over South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. There was nothing we could not do with the aerial weapon had we wanted to do so. We had air superiority over North Vietnam, although we occasionally had to fight for it. Air superiority was only sometimes challenged by hostile fighter aircraft. But, even over the North, we had certain rules that we did not often break because to break them meant a sure increase in the loss rates. This was against an enemy whose defenses, even in December of 1972, were toward the lower end of the spectrum of sophistication.

It is not just sophistication that counts, of course. What made Hanoi the “most defended piece of territory in the history of aerial warfare” was not sophistication, but mass: the sheer number of AAA guns and, later, SAM sites occupied and firing. Mass and redundancy are possessed more by them than by us.

He became aware when he hit the ground.

aware of what happens to the “lives of people” on the ground in war.

He became aware when he hit the ground.

One would assume that he was aware before that point, but indeed, his 5.5 years in captivity provided a perspective of what happens on the ground that Rockefeller has absolutely no idea of.  To talk of McCain not knowing the difficulties of war is absolutely disgusting from a man who spent his entire life living in privilege derived from the wealth of his family.

Rockefeller is not only not aware of the horrors of war, he is also not any more aware of the difficulties of poverty than Kennedy or Kerry.  These Dems have lived a life of wealth and privilege and it is ironic that they would attack McCain simply because he fought Communism in war time while Rockefeller ran around hob-knobbing with the Kennedy’s and playing in the Peace Corps.

he is also not any more aware of the difficulties of poverty than Kennedy or Kerry.

Or Bush.  How very unrepublican to attack people because of wealth, privilege and refusing to serve.