Don’t tell me you love me. Show me you love me.

What with the roller coaster ride that the oil market has turned into, and its deleterious effect on the price of gasoline and diesel in this country, and the effect that these rising prices have had on everything else, a lot of small businesses, such as Pikeville’s own Dawahare’s, have been forced to close. One of the local businesses on this end of the county that closed last year was the Fas-Chek at Mouthcard. Fas-Chek was a reincarnation of the former IGA, which had its beginnings as Tackett’s Market, when the store was located in what is now the truck parts store.

After an uncomfortably long time, when local residents had to journey to Elkhorn or Regina to get the basic necessities of life, such as bananas, we have seen yet another incarnation of this store, now called Mouthcard Grocery. Yes, this store has already reopened, but, like a couple who move in together without the “benefit of clergy”, it hasn’t been made official. Well, that is about to change. This Saturday, the store will make it official. They plan a day-long celebration that will include music and eats. If you haven’t already done so, come out and welcome back the crew, all of whom had to either seek other employment, or wait it out, until that happy day that saw the store emerge as a functioning business once again.

On to other matters. Last week saw the “presumptive nominee” (a needless title that simply means this guy got the job) of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama, journey to points outside the U. S., namely, Afghanistan and Iraq, then to Europe, specifically to Germany, France, and Great Britain. Oddly enough, this journey was suggested by the “presumptive nominee” of the other party, John McCain. Odder still (not really, just felt like a fun thing to say), John McCain has done nothing but harp about the trip since Obama made it. First, it was, all the A-team reporters are out with Barack, leaving me (McCain) with the JV team”. (Odd that McCain would gripe about the media, when CBS and Katie Couric blatantly edited out a serious gaffe in response to a question about the “surge” in Iraq, and inserted one of his campaign’s talking points to cover the edit.) And then nasty comments about every aspect of the trip. Well, when you ain’t getting the limelight, do something or say something that will attract it, I guess.

Anyway, if it did nothing else, this sojourn to Europe gave McCain the fodder for a particularly nasty attack ad. Except that the ad was done with typical McCain efficiency. And that certainly blunts the edge of what might have been a sharper sword. McCain’s desire is to have everyone believe that he loves the troops more than Obama. And to prove it, he goes after his Democratic opponent for not visiting wounded troops at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Obama’s campaign cited a fear that the visit might be perceived as a politically-inspired one, and that, rather than take the chance of having these soldiers become a bone of contention in the presidential contest, he chose to forgo it. McCain, he-who-truly-loves-the-troops, shows no such reservations, as his ad places the same wounded troops squarely in the middle of the whole circus. And, when he implies that Obama refuses to visit wounded troops because he could not get media coverage, he also overlooks the visits that Obama made to wounded personnel while in Iraq, and to ones made to the troops at Walter Reed Medical Center, neither of which had reporters along.

But to the claim that it is he (McCain) who is the real supporter of the troops, certainly no one could argue that actions speak louder than words. And while McCain’s words say one thing, his voting record in the Senate says something else entirely. Better still, the opinions of those veterans, whose interests McCain has voted against time after time, says something else, as well.

In true McCain fashion, the candidate has insisted numerous times that he has received “the highest awards from literally every veterans organization in America”, but here are the grades several of these organizations gave McCain, and, to be fair, the grade given Obama. (All facts sited are from http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/23/mccain-vet-awards/.) What is obviously one of the newer organizations, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America could give McCain no better a grade than a D. That’s right, a D, as in deficient. By way of contrast, Obama got a B+. An older organization, the Disabled Veteran’s of America, has had to note that McCain voted against veteran’s issues a full 80% of the time. Obama, conversely, voted with veterans 80% of the time. A group from McCain’s era, the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) watched while McCain voted against them 15 times, and for them only 8 times. Obama voted with the VVA 12 times, and against them only once.

But the topper of the toppers, the two big veteran’s organizations, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, along with the aforementioned groups, watched in disbelief as McCain opposed a new GI Bill of Rights. This bill was proposed by Virginia Senator Jim Webb, a Marine veteran, and was fashioned after the one enacted after WII. Not only did McCain oppose this bill, but he actually skipped the vote in the Senate to attend a fund raiser in California. In fact, only three Senators missed this key vote. (The bill passed 75-22, thus assuring its enactment, as Bush might have otherwise vetoed it.) The other two were Ted Kennedy, who was undergoing treatment for his brain cancer, and Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn had a funeral to attend. With love like this, you don’t need anyone to hate you, that’s for sure.

Okay, McCain is again, regrettably following the example laid down by the outgoing President, Dubya. It seems that their idea of supporting troops is to vote to start a war. But when the chips are down, when push comes to shove, when you really need them to be there for you, they are nowhere to be found. And that is sad, really, because, like a visit to wounded veterans that isn’t covered by the press, votes that few people know about, but which really help out those who sacrifice themselves at the behest of their Commander-in-Chief, can tell the tale of who really supports the troops.