In all candor, if I'd been President of the United States, I'd have ordered the plane landed at the nearest Air Force base, and I'd have been over he… - John McCain

The press had a finger on the scale for Obama, both in the primaries and the general election. They gave him more favorable attention than they gave his opponents. They defended him from attacks, unfair and fair, and criticized his opponents for making them. I don’t think that’s disputable or surprising.

It is really embarrassing to watch this President and this Secretary of State as they continue to beg Vladimir Putin and his stooge Lavrov as they continue to place Russia in a position of influence they have not had since Anwar Sadat threw them out of Egypt in 1973. They now have a major role to play in the Middle East. They have a military base. They have a naval base. They have upgraded airfields, and they have now solidified Bashar Assad's position in power. Is there anybody who believes that Russia will agree to an arrangement that Bashar Assad or his stooge doesn't remain in power? Of course not. Aren't we tired of begging Vladimir Putin? Aren't we tired of watching the United States and the young men we trained and equipped being bombed by Vladimir Putin and killed and murdered? Don't we sometimes grow a little tired of that? It is no wonder that the United States of America has no standing and no influence in the region.

After a while, we must have thought the distance between our desks too great for either of us to hear each other clearly or that the presence of the clerk transcribing our exchange had become too distracting. And as if we had both heard some secret signal, we set down our microphones simultaneously and walked briskly to the well of the floor, where we could continue in closer quarters, and in language perhaps too…familiar…to be recorded for posterity, which, regrettably was still audible enough to be overheard by a few reporters, who were now leaning over the railing of the press gallery trying to ascertain just what the hell was going on between McCain and Kennedy. After we both were satisfied we had sufficiently impressed upon each other the particulars of proper senatorial comportment, we ended our discussion, and returned to the business that had brought us to the chamber in the first place. And, I'm happy to report, we succeeded in discouraging our colleagues from continuing their intemperate argument. They both had deserted the chamber with, I was later told, for I did not notice their escape, rather puzzled if not frightened looks on their faces.