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This post is in: Election 2008, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?
Well, if you didn’t, you’re about to find out:
[The McCain campaign] will be prepared to show McCain’s “home” in Hanoi by using images of his cell. They claim they have not overused the POW element and insist they have “underused it.”
And they apparently said that with a straight face, too! Via Steve
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[…] That the American people are unaware of the fact that McCain was a Prisoner of War. You can make a comment below or link a trackback from your own site. RSS feed for comments on this post. […]
Conservatively Liberal
I half expect them to have a re-creation of his cell at the convention, complete with a dirt floor and a cross in it. Of course they will have to eliminate any reference to the torture he received since McCain now says that is not torture. All McCain can do now is say they held him for five and a half years, with no kitchen table.
When I hear that they are saying that they have ‘underused’ his POW status, something tells me that we are soon going to have it burned into our minds forever. Did I tell you that I am a POW of John McCain’s POW stories? Really. Until he stops torturing me with his POW story, I am just going to have to suffer. Hopefully not for five and a half years.
dmsilev
Coming soon to a debate podium near you: “Bob, as I learned during my five long years in a cage in North Vietnam, there is nothing that builds character like being a POW, which I was. And after I escaped, I mean was released, I didn’t like to talk about my experience as a POW. And the inability to talk about five years of my life reminds me that the North Vietnamese didn’t believe in free speech. As to the question, I believe that the Federal Reserve should cut taxes for the rich.”
-dms
PaulW
The McCain campaign has also underused the fact that McCain has starred in more movies than Obama. They’ve also underused the fact that McCain was part of the Keating Five, Congress’s most famous bridge club. They’ve also underused the fact that more and more Americans are getting sick of being bludgeoned with the POW meme. Does this mean Picard can run for President, considering what the Cardassians did to him in that episode “Chain of Command Pt. 2”?
Conservatively Liberal
Fixed.
slippy hussein toad
If the Democratic leadership were as childish a bunch of jackasses as the Republicans are, they would respond to this by turning up at the convention next week in pink plastic handcuffs and crying about how they were prisoners, too.
However, since they’re not, I can still predict that this effort to magnify this one aspect of McCain’s career will backfire hugely into his face. Prisoners of war ARE tortured, and psychologically traumatized. Unfit for the Presidency, most likely.
Of course I would feel more sympathy for McCain had he made use of his POW status to make an actual stand against torture, but since he chickened out in order to suck the Bush Administration’s ass, he can take his POW credentials and fuck himself with them.
Rome Again
No, but he might qualify for VP due to the torture the Borg put him through, but only if the records for Locutus can be found and he can be vetted properly.
Rome Again
We’re ALL POWs now. ;)
Rome Again
Good point! This needs to be brought to their attention.
Rome Again
Not if you’re a Republican, in which case, the whole POW thing is just an advanced lesson in bootstraps pulling.
Nikki
They may as well just go ahead and say it:
Jorge
Will there come a point were Joe Biden says, “You know, I lost my wife and kid in a car wreck and you wouldn’t catch me putting it in a campaign commercial in a million years. Maybe Barack can do an add gumming up sympathy cause he had a dead-beat dad.”
Rome Again
John McCain is just overcome with is own sense of accomplishment, which is a good thing, because hardly anybody else is.
Nylund
I suggest McCain go spend another 5 years in a box in South East Asia just to drive the point home.
Rome Again
Was he crucified and raised from the dead too? It seems to me the whole “Messiah” label thing is being applied to the wrong candidate.
Hedley Lamarr
What do we know for sure about his days as a POW? Are there witnesses to it all? I thought these guys were kept apart, hence the tapping codes, etc.
What I recall about the years of the POW-MIA buttons was thinking, “Those poor guys who were drafted off the streets to go to Viet Nam”. But McCain was a volunteer; in particular, someone who wanted to match the military achievements of his father and grandfather. In that he failed, and now wants to try again to win a war, this time in the Middle East.
cleek
McCain has moved past Grandpa Simpson and is now shin-deep into Connton Hill territory!
“I was 14, just a little older than Bobby. But I knew Uncle Sam needed me, so I lied and signed up. We had beat the Nazzys in Italy, and they shipped me to the Pacific theater. A Tojo torpedo sent our troop ship to the bottom. I could only save three of my buddies: Fatty, Stinky, and Brooklyn. They were kind of like you fellas [to Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer], only one of them was from Brooklyn. Out of the sun came a Tojo Zero and put fitty bullets in my back. The blood attracted sharks. I had to give ’em Fatty. Then things took a turn for the worse. I made it to an island, but it was full of Tojos! They were spitting on the U.S. flag! So I rushed ’em, but it was a trap. They opened fire and blew my shins off. Last thing I remember, I beat ’em all to death with a big piece of Fatty. I woke up in a field hospital, and they were sewing my feet to my knees.”
4tehlulz
You just spoilered their October campaign! Asshole!
chopper
this is what i like about having biden on the ticket. he can get away with that kind of thing and it would be a sight to behold.
cleek
Connton Hill = Cotton Hill
chopper
maybe mcthuselah can double down on the whole annoyingly-overused-campaign-phrase and talk about how he spent 5 years in a vietnamese “lockbox”.
SpotWeld
Is McCain running for POW-in-Chief or for President?
gil mann
The RNC just commissioned a new backdrop for the convention–a huge mockup of the POW/MIA logo, except they’re replacing “YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN” with “WE WILL NEVER LET YOU FORGET.”
Marshall
Why is it every time McCain or his people say something like this I think of The Manchurian Candidate ?
Dennis - SGMM
So what did McCain learn from being a POW?
His first wife found out what he learned about constancy.
The rest of us have found out what he learned about integrity, honor and truthfulness.
Face
Anyone wonder what Hilton thinks every time they say “Hanoi Hilton”? Is it a good thing to get the name mentioned, or bad because it implies staying at a Hilton is torture?
Any marketers out there wanna comment?
Darkness
No doubt. Rove himself wrote this playbook. I guess his minions who are currently working for McCain aren’t situationally aware enough to realize they are building and walking into the trap their own master devised. Or perhaps more accurately: A sharpened-bamboo-lined jungle pit trap. Let’s hope the Obama strategists are watching and salivating somewhere beyond the gently swaying ferns and are just waiting for the optimum moment to spring this sucker.
Rome Again
I don’t stay there, as it would supplement Paris’ shopping sprees.
oh really
Of course I did. I read all about him in the Iliad.
Kevin
John McCain is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.
Joshua Norton
Fox “Fairly Unbalanced” Noise raises the already high level of journalmalistic discourse by asking:
“Owning seven houses is the American dream. Why does elitist Black Barack Hussein Mohammed Allah Beezlebub Putin Osama Obamabinladen hate teh Awesome American Dream®©™³?”
Now get off my goddamned lawns.
Delia
Maybe they could make a video game out of it. Double plus. They reach a whole new demographic, AND they add some much needed funds to their campaign budget.
Birdzilla
Saw about that on the HISTORY CHANNEL and frankly i think the vietgong owe restitution to all those who were POWs and were kept at the infamous HANIO HILTON
Notorious P.A.T.
I won’t hold my breath.
Martin
Good idea! A new mission for America’s Army – break out John McCain. Anyone who gets bagged on the mission gets a recap of all the veteran benefits McCain voted for (none). Anyone who is captured gets to be ‘interrogated’ per the US frat party standard. Anyone who survives is required to play the mission over constantly for the next 100 years.
zoe from pittsburgh
I don’t know why I was suprised but this is how he’s spinning his I-don’t-know-how-many-houses-I-have gaffe– he is now saying that he appreciates having a house at all because for 5 years he didn’t have a house or a kitchen table to sit down to. Because after that there are no follow up questions, no response, no one saying “what the hell does that have to do with anything?”
You really can’t make this shit up.
Alex
Just because McCain can’t remember how many houses he has or what kind of car he drives doesn’t mean we can’t remember he was a POW.
ed
Being a POW entitles one to respect, thanks and a special car tag. The Presidency? Not so much.