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This broke a couple of days ago, but I haven’t really had time to blog about it yet… John McCain’s age doesn’t seem to be an issue for voters, heck his mother is still alive, kicking and campaigning for him and she’s in her 90’s, so I don’t think he’s going to be slowing down any time soon. If Robert Byrd can continue to serve in the Senate, the age argument isn’t going to get anywhere with McCain.

Now though the issue seems to be McCain’s ease of movement, the LA Times has an article out discussing McCain’s disability pay:

Sen. John McCain has long said he is in robust health and is strong enough to hike the Grand Canyon, but he also is receiving what his staff Monday termed a “disability pension” from the Navy.

When McCain released his tax return for 2007 on Friday, he separately disclosed that he received a pension of $58,358 that was not listed as income on his return.

On Monday, McCain’s staff identified the retirement benefit as a “disability pension” and said that McCain “was retired as disabled because of his limited body movements due to injuries as a POW.”

McCain campaign strategist Mark Salter said Monday night that McCain was technically disabled. “Tortured for his country — that is how he acquired his disability,” Salter said.

Certain types of military and veterans pensions are either partially or completely tax-exempt, depending on the seriousness of the disability. In McCain’s case, the exemption is 100%.

I’m not exactly sure what the point is supposed to be here. My first thought was that they were hinting at some impropriety based on the fact that McCain was drawing a disability check because he was hiking the Grand Canyon with his son. But that’s just ludicrous… McCain was so bad injured during his crash and subsequent beatings that to this day he is physically unable to lift his arms over his shoulders. Regardless of whether or not he can get around with no problem, he still got those injuries in service to his country, so it seems to me that it is perfectly reasonable to pay him his pension. If a pension is a company paying you for the work you did for them… well I’d say the US continues to owe McCain. Case closed.

They also seem to be taking issue with the fact that the pension is tax free, but that’s something that the military decides… you also really can’t take issue with that decision. The guy wouldn’t be able to vote in Iowa, because during the caucus process he might be asked to raise his hand. If that doesn’t qualify as “100% disabled,” I don’t know what does. Case closed again.

So McCain is obviously disabled… after all, I keep pointing to the fact that he can’t lift his arms over his shoulders, but that wasn’t even his most severe injury. The Navy decided that he’s “100% disabled” so you can’t really take issue with that.

In news coverage there seems to be some undertone that McCain shouldn’t take the disability pay… but that’s not going to carry water with anyone. At least I would hope not. If nothing else, that sort of mindset would seem out of place with the entitlement generation.

So it begs the question, why exactly was anyone talking about this?