Barb (at the GOS) has an excellent list of ways McCain has demonstrated his support for the troops he claims to love so much. A sample:
McCain has repeatedly voted against amendments in the Senate that would have…covered such important services as improving care at veterans’ hospitals, providing mental health services to soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse problems. [2006 Senate Vote #7, 2/2/2006]
In 2006, McCain voted against the Kerry amendment that would eliminate increased fees and co-payments for veterans in the TRICARE health care program by raising the discretionary spending limit by approximately $10 billion. The provisions would have been fully offset by eliminating creating corporate tax breaks. [2006 Senate Vote #67, 3/16/2006]
McCain was one of only 13 Republicans to vote against an amendment that added over $400 million for inpatient and outpatient care for veterans. [2006 Senate Vote #98, 4/26/2006]
More at the link. The media won’t bring any of this up, however. Even though I am now becoming more left leaning than I have ever been, I still had the impression that the media supports Democrats (or gives them a fairer hearing anyway.) More and more, I am seeing that this is nowhere near the case. McCain gets a pass because is supposedly “a hero.” I’ve never been sure why he is a hero. He graduated 4th or 5th from the bottom of his class. He wrecked three of his own aircraft (if I remember correctly) and he was captured in Viet Nam. Unless I missed the part where he jumped on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow servicemen, I don’t know where the hero part comes in. But I digress.
He needs to be exposed for the person he is – someone who, demonstrably, does not support the military he claims to love so much.
Update: Maybe this post qualifies me for one of Andrew’s “Moore Award” nominations!
Mr. Tactful
Details, minor details.
You obviously hate the military.
gbear
I’m running out right now to buy a media network so we can get the word out. Clearchannel beware.
Tom G
I totally agree. How long does a person get the “hero media pass”, anyway? I remember back in 1996 arguing with a friend about McCain – even then my attitude was “I don’t CARE about his POW status, that was years ago. What’s his voting record?”
TheFountainHead
John McCain: Because They Say So.
TheFountainHead
And I guess I can stop getting my hopes up about Warner. Oh well, at least he’ll be in the senate.
Dennis - SGMM
I’ve said it before: there is no sacrifice for the war that is so small the Republicans will make it.
Anyone want to bet that no one in the MSM will confront him about those votes? This is another example of the same kind of selective coverage that allowed Bush to get us into Iraq. Our consciously derelict press is McCain’s greatest asset – heaven knows that it isn’t his platform.
Wilfred
McCain’s Vietnam story is the most sacred of political cows. Some people with cred are starting to push back.
John Cole
He is a hero because he endured years of torture in the Hanoi Hilton, and has spend his entire adult life able to left his arms up his shoulders are so ravaged. It doesn’t matter how he got there, he was there. All our POW’s who went through that shit are heroes.
Bennet
When a P.O.W., under pressure of torture, McCain issued a statement condemning America as the imperialist aggressor in Viet-Name. I do not blame or scorn him for this. But, were he the Dem. candidate, the Rep. Wurlitzer would be loudly blaring through the major media which now never mention it.
EL
Agreed that he could correctly be called a hero for enduring that shit as a POW, and for refusing early release (as the son of an admiral) when others would have had to stay.
That said, it doesn’t make him a good supporter of the military from his voting record. Which should be pointed out by the press.
AkaDad
We’re only a couple weeks into the general election season and Cole is already showing signs of McCain Derangement Syndrome.
cleek
you gotta see this clip.
it’s gonna be pretty fucking hard to convince the press that John “Maverick War Hero POW Solider God” McCain’s alleged national security credentials may not be all they’re cracked up to be. watch as the drones shake their head in disbelief at Gen Clark as he dares suggest that being a solider 35 years ago might not be all it takes to be CiC.
AkaDad
Oops, Michael wrote this and has the MDS.
I’d apologize to John, but I’m sure he’ll have MDS soon.
Wilfred
Don’t drink and blog, John.
Michael D.
To me, a hero is someone who makes the choice to go above and beyond the call of duty. Personally, I think the word “hero” is one of the most overused words we have, minimizing the sacrifice of true heroes who put themselves out there, in the face of overwhelmind odds, to make a change or do something no one would expect of any reasonable person – BY CHOICE.
I wrote some time ago that I also don’t believe the 9/11 firefighters were heroes. They were doing their jobs. I got a lot of flack for that. But they are firefighters. They are supposed to go into buildings and rescue people. That they died does not make them heroes. To me, what would make a firefighter a hero is knowing he or she was going to his or her death to save someone. The firefighters of 9/11 did not know the buildings would collapse. They just did their jobs and they, sadly, happened to die because of it.
I don’t believe McCain is a hero. Now, if he endured 5 years in the Hanoi Hilton so that another soldier/aviator/or seaman could go home, then that would be heroic.
McCain’s story is compelling and a great story of an American who endured. Sorry though, it’s not a hero story.
cleek
what Michael D just said.
“hero” is not a synonym for “solider, firefighter or nurse”. you need to do something beyond the basic job description.
Dennis - SGMM
McCain’s conduct while in captivity was in keeping with the highest, most honorable traditions of the military service. He was heroic, no doubt. That doesn’t make him right about everything military any more than my service in a shitty little place in the Mekong Delta makes me right about everything military.
McCain is a dangerously out of touch dinosaur. If heroism alone is sufficient grounds to be elected President then how did I miss Audie Murphy’s term in office?
Sister Mary Martha
Micheal, although I agree with you that the word hero is over used, I think there are people, like firemen, who do heroic things in the course of their jobs. Certainly, the firemen of 9-11 qualify…they knew there were going into an extremely dangerous situation but they stayed while they tried to save others. That is, by your own definition, heroic.
John McCain is another story. A person can be a hero, do something heroic and have heroism as a thing of the past. I think that is the case here.
TenguPhule
Selling out his fellow soldiers to the enemy to is a military virtue?
Who knew.
Jay
Thank you, John.
I will say, though, that it is necessary to put heroic acts into the whole context of a man’s life. McCain’s service and suffering make him a hero, but his policy choices of late, of course, reflect poorly on him.
In the final analysis, he’s a great, yet deeply flawed guy who got lost along the way. However, recall that he nearly switched parties, and those who switch parties tend to switch voting patterns.
If the R’s get blown out this year, who knows? I could see McCain taking an ambassadorship or cabinet post in an Obama administration, or retiring to flip his seat and stick it to the R’s.
Now, I’m not arguing that all those who embrace Repub. policies are evil, and that going Dem is all sweetness and light. Rather, these Republicans have been in power so long, they’ve run out of workable ideas, and McCain is the same guy who bitch-slapped Bob Jones in 2000, only to sell out to Bush when he could’ve easily told him to f off.
There’s a soul somewhere in John McCain; we just don’t see it often enough these days.
Dennis - SGMM
I’ve heard something about that. If so, then I take it all back. Could you please provide a link?
TenguPhule
And signed on to have the same thing done at home.
I dunno, somehow I think it makes him worse if having gone through it, the fuckturd can so eagerly agree to have it done to other people.
nightjar
There are several groups of veterans out there (and here is one) who don’t like Mccain and are planning there own “Swift Boating” operation against him. They will use unconfirmed rumors, innuendo, and half truths to try and hurt him in the general election.
And not only will they fail, as they should, they will help Mccain in the long run by adding votes from the backlash that will follow. All the public will see is the fact he was a tortured POW for many years and will agree that he is a hero for that alone, as will I.
There are many reasons why Mccain should not be president, his military service is not one of them.
Dennis - SGMM
Could it just be another old man thing? “That ain’t torture, now what they did to us in the old days, that was torture! We had to walk six miles uphill to the torture chamber and then chop the wood they used for the fire to heat up the pincers they used on us.”
TenguPhule
And if you believe that one, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell you.
SGEW
From th’ wiki (referencing Hubbell) :
That sounds like some serious “hero” shit right there. He voluntarily remained in prison, heavily wounded, probably knowing that he would be tortured, out of a sense of military honor. Isn’t this standard “hero” behavior?
[Of course, this all makes his later complicity in U.S. torture even more loathsome, but this is beside the (immediate) point]
nightjar
I don’t need a bridge, but I could use a democrat in the White House. And idiots who try and smear McCain”s military record, absent legitimate proof, will diminish the chances of Obama winning. Period.
Jay
Michael, McCain did, in fact, refuse to be released until and unless lower ranked, and/or lesser-known (he hated the fact that his dad’s rank was used as a propaganda tool and bargaining chip) prisoners were let go.
You’re right that the guy’s no saint, but that kind of selflessness is rare, and heroic.
Chris Johnson
I’m with SGEW. If that is true, that he refused to be released until every man taken before him was released as well, that alone says ‘war hero’ to me.
And also with SGEW that he’s pissed on that reputation by condoning torture (much less endorsing it like by griping about the Supreme Court decision in favor of habeas)
I’m sorry, there cannot BE brainless litmus tests like this. John was heroic, once, long long ago, so we have to obey him for the rest of his natural life! PLEASE.
RSA
McCain was a war hero, in my opinion. Where the media go wrong, I think, is in giving McCain credit on every military issue that comes up (as Wesley Clark ably pointed out). Having been a POW, having been a jet pilot, having been a captain in the Navy (though without a major command)–all of that doesn’t mean squat when it comes to making high-level strategic decisions required of a President. And that’s aside from all the policy flip-flops McCain’s made.
SGEW
Of course, one could easily deconstruct the artificially manipulated meta-narrative of “hero,” and the hetero-normative construction of “honor” implicit in such, i.e., question and counter-reference the assumptions underlying the “war hero” paradigm. Etc. etc. etc.
This would make you eligible for a “Poseur Alert,” tho. But not the “Moore Award“.
w vincentz
The real story is at Counter Punch.
McCain the “war hero”…LMAO!
I’d post the link but I always screw it up.
jake
I don’t have a problem with saying what and how McCain endured as a POW makes him a hero. Firefighters and cops and rescue workers are heroes because they do the shit the rest of us don’t want to do. Nurses deserve a small medal every time they don’t stifle the WATBs they have to look after.
However, “Hero” isn’t a 247 state of being despite what the comic books tell us. You can do one or one thousand heroic things and at the same time be a selfish double-dealing prick. Exhibit A: The Senator from Arizona.
But don’t worry, about the media. By the time VoteVets.org gets through with him Cindy will have to scrape him off the ground with the trowel she uses to apply her make up.
mark
I think most people are reluctant to withhold the term “hero” from anyone who honorably puts his/her life on the line. But “hero” doesn’t qualify McCain for the presidency any more than it does a 9/11 firefighter.
SGEW
And speaking of Sen. McCain and the Boumediene, here’s an excellent CBS News story: “McCain Takes Gitmo Ruling Personally”.
(h/t digby)
liberal
Michael D. wrote,
The only appropriate response to that is “LOL!”
Michael D.
You did read everything I wrote after that, right?
Kyle
You’re right that the guy’s no saint, but that kind of selflessness is rare, and heroic.
He was following the code of conduct for US military personnel in captivity, which included not accepting special privileges and adhering to the ‘first in, first out’ priority for prisoner release.
If he had accepted early release, he would have been court-martialed not to mention unbearably disgraced given his family background. Not to say that others wouldn’t have taken the release anyway, but it wasn’t a completely selfless act — he would have incurred major personal punishment.
SGEW
Cripes! Really?
That Code of Conduct is some serious stuff.
Mary
The fact that he was following the code of conduct doesn’t make him an extraordinary, mold-breaking hero — but I know I’d have a damn difficult time facing torture that could have continued for months or years if the alternative was merely imprisonment or dishonour at home. So he still gets hero status in my books not just for the torture he endured before he was tempted with that offer, but for all the torture he endured after he refused the offer.
Of course, he’s also ill-prepared to be president, and Clark made those points damn well on MSNBC. (I can’t view MSNBC videos on their page, although the embedded versions here and elsewhere work. If anyone else has the same problem, here’s the YouTube version.)
Dennis - SGMM
It is terribly serious. When I went through SERE at Coronado they told us that everyone has a breaking point, that we were only human after all. Then they told us that if we were captured and we broke then we’d have to go through the rest of our lives knowing exactly what it took to break us.
The Code of Conduct was developed in the aftermath of the US experience in Korea. It was felt that some servicemen surrendered too quickly and that others were too co-operative with the enemy while in captivity. SERE was another answer to the Korea experience and it was, purposefully, hell. It ended with incarceration in a mock prison camp. The instructors wore pseudo-Russian uniforms and we inmates were subjected by them to waterboarding, stress positions, the box, and being slapped and punched while being interrogated. One of my fellow inmates actually asked me, “Are we still in America, man?” When the exercise finished a day or so later, they raised the American flag, played the National Anthem and the instructors came out and shook our hands. We also got all of the oatmeal we could eat and all of the orange juice we could drink (The survival portions preceded our imprisonment and since most of the wild game had long before wised up and none of us were Tarzan we were damned hungry). I came out of it with a loose tooth because I couldn’t resist being a wise-ass.
The point was to make us enthusiastic about evasion and to give us a preview of what we might have to confront should we be captured.
SGEW
[speechless]
Tom in Texas
Heroism and Competence are entirely separate, even by your own definition Michael. One can heroically risk their own life knowing they will die without being intellegent.
Otto Man
Cleek posted a clip of Wes Clark on MSNBC, bursting their bubble about McCain’s national security credentials. If you haven’t seen it, go now.
He approaches the man with respect, but shows the media to be worshipping him blindly. It’s a how-to guide for Democrats making TV appearances, and Exhibit 148 in why Clark needs to be the VP candidate.
JoyceH
Guys, I think it’s a very big mistake to go try to claim that McCain was not a war hero. It looks like what the Swift Boaters did to Kerry, looks very partisan, very harsh, and only costs the credibility of the person making the argument.
A much better line of argument would be to attack this strange assumption that being a war hero forty years ago automatically makes a person a foreign policy expert today. Because it is that war bio that somehow gives McCain his foreign policy cred, and that’s just downright irrational.
Michael D.
Joyce: I think McCain’s service was honorable – just like I think my friend Cris’s service in Iraq (he just got back from a 15 month tour) is honorable. I know my friend Cris, who has been in firefights I could never imagine participating in myself, doesn’t consider himself a hero. And I just don’t think McCain’s service approaches heroism. I just don’t. Like cleek, I don’t think “soldier” is a synonym for “hero.”
Otto Man
Agreed. We all know that “grinder,” “sub” and “hoagie” are the synonyms for “hero.”
Dennis - SGMM
Addendum: the worst part of SERE was that you could at any time get out of it. If you said, “I’ve had enough, I want out,” they would take you out of the exercise. You would spend the rest of your enlistment mowing lawns because you couldn’t be trusted with anything more important.
Cassidy
Perhaps the term hero has been watered down so much that you are unable to recognize real ones. Heroes aren’t John McCain or James Bond. Heroes are everyday men and women who serve something higher than them. And maybe you don’t respect that higher calling, and that’s fine, but you’d do well to learn what kind of selflessness it takes give yourself to something bigger.
JoyceH
Michael, you can ‘think’ that all you want. But be advised that a lot, probably the vast majority, of Americans would have a negative reaction to the argument that someone who spent five years as a Vietnam POW was not a hero. It makes the person making the argument look petty and mean-spirited.
What’s more, it’s a SILLY argument! If the voting public does not agree with McCain on the issues, they won’t vote for him, whether he was a war hero or not.
Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole without having to trash his war record. And given the political climate this year and McCain’s own befuddlement on the campaign trail, McCain’s chances are even slimmer than Dole’s. There’s simply no need to go down this road.
Cassidy
Typo, I meant the Die Hard character.
Jess
ClapClapClapClapClap.
Thanks, Michael–this is exactly what I’ve been wanting to say. I recently read a post by one of his fellow POWs who was there with McCain (can’t find it now), who pointed out that yes, McCain did do what an American soldier should do in that situation, but so did most of the others. And many were in longer or abused more than McCain. It doesn’t negate what McCain went through or how he conducted himself, but it puts it in perspective. He did his job, along with a number of other American soldiers. He was worlds better than GWB, but not as outstanding as Kerry, who did go above and beyond by choice.
nightjar
It was like that in jump school, except the guys that quit were put in the kitchen and harassed to no end. And when they were done washing pots and pans, they got to dig in the quitters hole, which was a pit about ten by twenty that they dug out and then filled back in over and over.
wasabi gasp
The meat of Michaels post is about hypocrisy and how flying over tall buildings in a single bound is the way McCain gets away with it in the media…and apparently in blog threads. Whether being a solder, or being the solder McCain was, automatically makes someone a hero isn’t something I will argue about. But, I’m sure being a solder doesn’t automatically make someone a dick. That, McCain earned.
travis
it’s a false dichotomy. he was a hero, past tense, because of all the choices he made: he didn’t have to be a navy pilot, the hardest of all the flying forces. he still faced a choice of accepting early release, whatever the UCMJ would have him do. and in the 80s, he accepted reality and worked to open trade agreements with vietnam. he didn’t have to do any of these things, but he did.
since that time, he has lost his way, morally. his voice was meaningless posturing in the fight against torture. he has been implicated in a number of financial and ethical scandals, from Keating 5 to the flying squad of lobbyists who run his campaign. he never votes for actual benefits for actual troops. and of course, he backed the most foolish war imaginable, one that has ruined the lives of so many.
he was a hero, now he’s a hypocrite. it’s tragic.
Dennis - SGMM
The guys who quit, or who cracked, were just pitied. I think that was worse. One of the guys who cracked had just shipped over (Begun his second enlistment) a few months earlier. SERE was thirty-seven years ago this Summer and I still feel bad for the guy.
Dennis - SGMM
I am far from being the best person that I could be but, I wonder how McCain is able to sell out everything that was admirable about himself so comprehensively. It begs the question, “Didn’t you used to be John McCain?”
cbear
I find it particularly disturbing that he has become positively Guiliani-esque in his constant references, and those of his surrogates and supporters, to his status as a former P.O.W.—-especially when it used to deflect criticism of his political views and voting record.
Jack H.
Service is (almost) always heroic. Belittling McCain’s military service isn’t cool at all, just as Republicans mocking Kerry’s wasn’t. Still, I don’t recall Kerry, Webb or Clark being called a hero every time their service is mentioned. Almost never come to think of it.
sglover
Spot on. There’s no doubt that “hero” is just about as over-used as “freedom” or “gifted”. There’s even less doubt that McCain is every bit as qualified for the White House as Bush the Lesser — that is, NOT AT ALL. But haggling over McCain’s POW conduct looks to me a lot like what that loon Malkin was doing, when she was yammering on about whether Kerry “really deserved” his Purple Hearts. Who wants to be in the same league as that psychotic?
Red
It doesn’t matter what happened to him in Vietnam. Virtually everything he’s done since then has been a net negative for America. and he’s voted to screw veterans so many times it’s not even funny. Fuck him in his hemorrhoid-riddled asshole.
Nancy Irving
Agree that arguing over whether he was a hero or not is a distraction.
If military (or other) heroism = qualification to be president, why not just pick some PTSD vet with a “will work for food” sign off a street-corner median?
Warren Terra
I think the record pretty clearly states:
1) McCain was a pretty lousy soldier (“sailor”?), what with the terrible academic performance, repeated rules and discipline violations so significant as to attract comment even in wartime, and the several planes he wrecked other than the one in which he was shot down.
2) McCain’s refusal to accept release out of turn in order to deny the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory, despite undergoing torture and denial of proper medical care, was pretty damn heroic. The fact that he succumbed to a much lesser degree and was recorded saying some dumb things is unfortunate but does not abolish his greater heroism while in captivity.
3) McCain’s work for reconciliation between Vietnam War Veterans and Vietnam War Protestors in the 80’s and 90’s, and his work for reconciliation between the US and Vietnam in the same period, would be admirable for his sort of cultural-conservative red-meat Republican even without his record as a Vietnam POW.
4) McCain actually has a pretty lousy record of supporting the troops with pay, home rotation time, medical care, and veterans’ benefits. Amazingly so given his personal history. For that matter, he’s astonishingly bad on torture given his experiences.
5) In a more general version of the fourth point I make, numerous sources report that while McCain has sometimes embraced worthy policy goals, he has a history of showboating and of ruthlessly denouncing any initiatives towards similar policy aims that in any way disagree with him or that fail to glorify his name.
mrl
You left out the part where he set fire to his own carrier.
jake
That’s all he’s got.
But as several people have already said, his service record is almost completely irrelevant (and I don’t think he wants us to count the ramp strikes). “Yes, you’re a hero Senator, now could you explain your plan for reducing the deficit?”
Shit, my Dad was a P.O.W and came back minus one eye as a result but he wouldn’t run for office if you threatened to take the other one. In fact, he doesn’t talk about it. And now that I think of it heroes don’t brag. So we could say McCain was a hero but ceased to be a hero when he started running his face about it 247.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
John and Cindy McCain are not elitists.
Punchy
Can I get this in English, please?
liberal
Micheal D. wrote,
Yes. Glad that you’re beginning to see the light. I’m just saying that the claim “the media aren’t easier on the Republicans” is so ludicrous that it almost doesn’t deserve a thoughtful rebuttal.
travis
punchy – he cannot raise his arms above his shoulders due to the stress-position torture that the North Vietnamese put him in. It’s a permanent injury; I believe he cannot put an ordinary shirt on without assistance.
the irony here, the one he’ll have to defend in Hell, is that the American government has been using similar stress-position tactics, and he has done nothing effective to stop it.
liberal
Michael D. wrote,
While not the same thing, this reminds me of my thoughts on the matter.
What it has in common with my thoughts is the word “choice”. A hero must, first of all, be an agent—namely, someone who thinks, then chooses, then acts.
RSA
I don’t think so either, but I think soldiers have many more opportunities to be heroes than anyone else. This reminds me of a pet peeve of mine, though: I think it was George H. W. Bush who popularized the usage of “warrior” as a synonym for soldier. That just has too many unfortunate connotations, and unnecessarily restricts what being a soldier is about.
john b
the real heroes
SGEW
win
The Moar You Know
McCain is a hero – he fought for his country and did it well. And his heroism is irrelevant to the discussion. I don’t give a shit about his heroism – what kind of president will he be?
The Grand Panjandrum
I believe John McCain’s actions while a POW were heroic. Yes, he did write and sign an anti-American AFTER they broke him. So what. Most people would piss their pants the first time a weapon was pointed at them. He showed real courage while being held by some very brutal captors. With all that said, where is McMaverick? He has become a parody of a bad joke.
Well said.
And I do highly recommend cleek’s video clip to Wes Clark’s take down of the McCain National Security Expert meme pervasive in the establishment media. As others have stated above, being a naval aviator DOES NOT make one a National Security Expert. Nor does being a Senator. McCain’s military service should acknowledged and he should be thanked. Much of his life since his return from those dark days at the Hanoi Hilton have been less than honorable.
He’s equal parts war hero and womanizing opportunist.
Jesus Babbling Christ! The Daily Mail has more hutzpah than the American stalwart establishment media giants. The thin veneer of a persona built up around him by that very same media establishment, stripped away by the bright lights of a Presidential campaign, make it readily apparent he is all too human in most endeavors, be they private or public.
JoyceH
And it was under this Bush administration that we got used to people talking about the president as the nation’s Commander in Chief, or ‘our’ Commander in Chief. The President is the Commander in Chief of the ARMED FORCES and these little flourishes that imply that he is commander in chief of all the civilian citizens of the nation is a militarized mindset that we need to get away from.
Jon H
You know who’s also a Vietnam war hero? Duke Cunningham.
Should Know Better
No kidding.
I almost hate to say it, because I think he’s done some wretched things, but when I see McCain speaking lately I can’t summon any anger.
When I see McCain I just feel sad, he looks defeated and unhappy. He sold his soul for the presidency but came up short.
jake
Based on his campaign so far, he’ll be whatever sort of president you want him to be.
Vote for John McCane – He’s as flexible as a 18 year old cheerleader.
DFH
It’s a wonder nobody listens to the DFHs. They were right about energy dependence, food safety, the environment, NYPD spying on peace activists, and now the “liberal” media bias. Thanks for taking the time, eventually and after so much damage has been done, for seeing what has been in front of your face this whole time if only you were willing to question what you have been told by people motivated only by profit.
David Hunt
No thanks. That bridge belongs to my grandkids. Or at least, they’re paying for it…
Hedley Lamarr
I can’t recall McCain speaking out about the years-long holdup for body armor in Iraq. Of course in McCain’s war his body armor was shot out from under him.
Cynicor
DON’T go at the “not a war hero” line. Under any reasonable definition, he performed heroically in the prison camps. It’s not balanced out by anything he did before or since that period. All sides of the political spectrum will savage you if you try it.
Instead, use smart political jiu-jitsu.
“John McCain was a war hero who underwent vicious torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese, bringing even him to a breaking point where he signed false confessions and which left him with a lifetime hatred of his captors. So it makes it twice as tragic that he now votes in favor of using these exact same methods against those who we’ve imprisoned without charge.
Torture extracted a false confession from John McCain. Ask him why he thinks it will now extract the truth from our POWs.”