McCain’s Borrowed “Cross in the Sand” Story
I think there is pretty solid evidence that he’s just copying other peoples’ shit.
1. The story sounds very much like a Solzhenitsyn story (via Sullivan)
Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed.
2. McCain is a Solzhenitsyn fan (via GOS)
The other possibility is that McCain really thinks this happened to him, and can’t differentiate between something he read and something he actually experienced. I’m pretty convinced that he experienced no such thing. As Rickrocket notes: “Somehow I doubt that Alexander Solzhenitsyn heard John McCain’s story and copied it.”
My guess? No one will ask McCain about it for fear of being accused of questioning his patriotism.
Scotty
Is this McCain’s ‘I invented the Internet’ moment?
Nope, probably not.
4tehlulz
Obligatory Bob Schieffer reference.
Crusty Dem
It’s almost certainly a bogus story, but it’s impossible to prove it false, unless multiple other prisoners come forward to refute it. Even then, good luck getting the media to report it.
That said, if it were a Democrat telling the story, he would be attacked relentlessly until he found the guard and had him repeat the story. And even then FNC, Limbaugh, and the Wall Street Journal would be calling him a liar until the end of time.
Pamela
There is a LOT of circumstancial evidence for this to be BS. From details changing (stick ? sandal ?) to him never mentioning it in his very long and personal account of his time as Pow that he wrote in the 70s etc. etc.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....111/569427
Read all the “evidence” there. Nothing more than circumstancial but certainly … curious.
Narcissus
I have no faith this will go further than the blogosphere, and even were it to make into the press or some form of “official” punditry, no faith it wouldn’t just flitter into the popular cognitive dissonance that has allowed McCain to pull even with Obama in so much polling.
McCain’s Cliff Notes | Oliver Willis
[...] Don’t like your own memories? Borrow someone else’s! [...]
Bob In Pacifica
Did I ever tell you a story of mine from WWII? I was in a Flying Fortress and the landing gear wouldn’t work and the belly gunner got squashed.
There’s a moral to all this. Vote for me.
John Cole
So McCain went to a religious forum, and lied about a variety of issues, may have cheated and heard the questions when he was not supposed to, and then stole some of his stories from someone else.
That is pretty fucking awesome.
seeker6079
If memory serves, it also shows up in a 1951 short story, “The Quest for St. Aquin”*, as the undercover priest is let through a checkpoint by another covert believer.
And, btw, what Crusty Dem said. Like TPM notes, McCain is graded on a curve. And like Amy Silverman noted, “That’s the thing about covering John McCain. Someone always wants you to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Pamela
I hope he gets asked and then if he gets mad, someone says “Gotta keep your sense of humor”
gbear
The new wrinkle to last night’s forum is that McCain wasn’t even at the church when Obama went on. He was still in transit. That sheds some light on those incredibly snappy answers that McCain was popping off last night.
nightjar
He’s just re-assuring the wingnut base that’s he one of them.
RH Potfry
“I think there is pretty solid evidence that he’s just copying other peoples’ shit.”
I think your post is rock solid evidence that you’ve got your head so far up your ass that you’re sitting on your shoulders.
cleek
it is. and it will forever remain our little secret.
ain’t politics great!
Jake
I’d say we know which candidate is the Christian. And yeah, not that it will matter.
jake
Solzhenitsyn was a foreigner and had one of them commie names. Plus, he wasn’t a POW. Go Packers/Steelers!
Fixxled
But you know what? If the verifiable facts about John McCain don’t stop someone from voting for him, stories like this won’t matter one bit.
dmsilev
Putting aside the cross of dirt thing (the evidence, while considerable, is all circumstantial), the fact that McCain apparently wasn’t in the church when Obama started answering questions, and may have heard said questions, is incredibly damning.
To both John McCain and Rick Warren. McCain cheated, and Warren lied (“he’s in a cone of silence”). That really says everything that needs to be said about the “man of God” and the “party of values”.
-dms
Martin
They’re now reporting that he wasn’t even at the church when Obama started. He showed up about halfway through Obama’s talk. Sounds like the audience was lied to about the format.
cleek
if this story gets any traction (which it won’t), it’d be a good idea not to pick Biden for VP…
Ranger Rick
The issue is bigger than a lifted story.
The issue is really what happened to McCain as a POW.
http://www.usvetdsp.com/smith_mc.htm
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/wa.....s+Herald++(1959-1973)&edition=&startpage=A20&desc=U.S.+Fliers+Well+Treated%2C+Hanoi+Says
http://powwarrior.wordpress.co.....easure-up/
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2.....ietnamese/
There are a number of veterans, right wingers, wives of missing and dead POWs who smell and are alleging something fishy about McCain’s story since the 1960’s….and NO media is reporting or investigating it.
99 Percent Pure
Another possibility is that he inadvertently heard a Solzhenitsyn audiobook while riding dirty with one of his lobbyist friends.
I find it extremely difficult to believe that he has actually read the late author; after all, he graduated Annapolis 894 out of 895, so it is highly doubtful that reading is FUNdamental for him.
I don’t doubt in the least that he is guilty of plagiary, along with lots of other nefariousness.
Pamela
No wonder McCain is so mad at Russia.
He remembers his own time in the Gulag !
Delia
Here’s the thing that has bothered me about the way McCain uses this story even before this stuff came out today about the dubiousness of its veracity. He has been telling the same story whenever he is asked about his faith. Now notice that even if you assume the story is true, it actually says absolutely nothing about McCain’s presumed Christian faith, although it says something about the faith of this alleged North Vietnamese guard. It’s merely designed to get the audience thinking one more time about John McCain’s Great Heroism as a POW (notice how he hates to bring up the topic), and then slides into the Faith-Promoting Experience. The rubes are not supposed to notice that said experience says nothing about McCain’s actual beliefs and assume it’s all about him. It’s really a convenient way of not talking about his religion.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
With one glance at this pudknocker’s site, you can tell he’s an asshole.
Do not feed the troll.
jake
Bu-but it wasn’t McCain’s fault! Being shut up in a cone of silence gave him flash backs. To that time. When he was a POW. In Vietnam. Where he was a POW. Shut up and bow down to the all POWerful McCane!
Seriously, if this is true the debates are going to make the Texas Chain Saw Massacre look like Beaches.
nightjar
Culled from the venerable pages of ClownHall.
Take that Barry, you big sissy. On the other hand, maybe he’s not Hitler anymore, or the Anti-Christ. At least until the next dose of elemental wingnuttery.
wasabi gasp
A country willing to vote for a candidate based on some stories is a country that deserves a candidate willing to make up some stories.
Martin
Win!
ThymeZone
McCain doesn’t care whether the thing actually happened or not.
As president, caring about things like that will not be his job. Defending America will be his job. He shows that he is ready to defend America by being able to tell the story.
Litlebritdifrnt
I have to admit with a poster over on the Retort, this is the funniest comment I have heard from McWingnut’s campaign so far in response to an ad saying McWingnut votes with George Bush 95% of the time
“But Team McCain pointed out in a statement that Mr. Obama voted for the Bush energy bill in 2005, which gave tax breaks to Big Oil.
In the Senate, Barack Obama has voted in lockstep with President George W. Bush nearly half the time”
Hmmmm I guess “nearly half the time” would mean (to people with a fully functioning brain) that he voted AGAINST George Bush MORE than half the time, but ya know that’s just me, perhaps everyone else thinks that “voting in lockstep with Bush NEARLY HALF THE TIME” somehow puts him on a par with McCain who votes with Bush 95% of the time. Damn these statistics are tricky man, ya know I just don’t get em.
PS) Quote from the Washington times
http://washingtontimes.com/new.....h-economy/
ten
My dad is a Vietnam vet and actually has that problem—he absorbs heard or read stories as his own memories. It’s a very difficult thing to deal with, because you cannot convince him otherwise. He remembers it absolutely, and he’s hugely offended if you question his memory.
If McCain has this, he is completely mentally unfit to be president. If he doesn’t, he is completely ethically unfit to be president.
Ninerdave
Ranger Rick,
Might I suggest you read this.
Brother Orbiting Laser
This just proves McCain is the true heir of St. Ronnie.
Brett
Didn’t Reagan do something similar with his story about liberating a concentration camp? It could just be a case of unconscious emulation.
Kris
Can we say Tuzla: The John McCain version?
jcricket
The caliber of McCain: He was not in the ‘cone of silence’ that he beforehand agreed to be in. McCain relies on a 40 year old experience to stop the dialog aimed at exploring his qualifications for president. McCain lifts literary material for the purpose of …bamboozlement(?).
In short: You can’t trust him to follow through with his own agreements, he has nothing current he wants to point to as a presidential qualification, and he is a lying sack of crap even when it comes to the 40 year old story.
the real jcricket
wasabi gasp
Wordpress plugin that shortens long links—-> here.
Conservatively Liberal
Ranger Rick broke the page! Congratulations!! ;)
Time for remedial embedding! Get the tazers! :D
That is pretty funny coming from someone whose head is crammed up their own ass and singing ‘I can see for miles and miles’.
Fix’t.
RSA
Hey, and I’ll tell you one about when I was walking along in the sand, and sometimes there were two pairs of footprints, and sometimes only one. . . but here’s the whole story.
PK
Actually that’s what religious forums are for.
Texas Dem
Regarding the “Cross in the Sand” story, I agree that the story’s not going anywhere. The media just aren’t interested in challenging McCain’s fitness to be president. And your average “low information voter” is transfixed by McCain’s military background and won’t abandon him until he reaches the oval office and makes a real goddamned mess of things, at which point they’ll be asking themselves, “How did we end up with this guy?” Nations ultimately get the leaders they deserve.
Nutroots - John McCain Stole His POW Cross in the Sand Story!!!! | 186 k per second
[...] Balloon Juice The other possibility is that McCain really thinks this happened to him, and can’t differentiate between something he read and something he actually experienced. I’m pretty convinced that he experienced no such thing. [...]
Jim
I’m afraid this country is too damn stupid to learn from its mistakes. It really appears as though despite all that has happened the last 8 years we are going to elect the wrong President three elections running. Stupid politicians, stupid journalist, stupid electorate. Too bad you can’t run cars on stupid, we’d be energy independent immediately.
Conservatively Liberal
Yup. Which explains why McCain still stands a chance of winning. Most of this country still has its head up its ass, but some are starting to pull it out. I hope enough do so before November.
I have to laugh at the ‘186 k per second’ name above. The first thing that came to mind was ‘they must be talking about their brain bandwidth’. I decided to check out the site and I discovered that was wrong. I was being too generous. It is obvious that the brain behind it is running at no more than 300 baud.
Narrow bandwidth brain and website? Go figure.
TenguPhule
Bush Admin jumps the Shark Again on Iran.
Iran can’t even launch into space now because the pussies in office think its all about setting up the bomb.
nightjar
From the CNN Political Ticker
Well that clears that up. Saint McCain could never lie to a Holy Man.
No noes in there anywhere.
Singularity
On the same ground, though off-topic: Atrios linked a NYTimes story explaining that McCain was not in an isolation area while Obama was being interviewed by Rick Warren. Of course, McCain was asked virtually the same questions and reportedly acquitted himself better than expected. When asked about the fact that McCain had the opportunity to hear the questions in advance, his scumbag spokesperson basically pulled the POW card. These people literally have no shame.
bago
Somebody set up Iran the bomb.
Splitting Image
Is this Solzhesomething guy actually popular in Russia?
I mean, does anyone think it might be a problem if the President (shudder) uses a story like this as an example of True American Courage when the original version was actually Russian?
And that it might get a tad worse if he’s using it to show the steely resolve he’ll have against the Russians?
Conservatively Liberal
Now that is an interesting way to put it. So they built “a home built rocket” as opposed to what? Buying one from China, russia or us?
How about ‘The United States launched a home built rocket today. The Saturn 5 rocket…’?
That just sounds so strange to hear it put that way, and every press release from the White House is carefully parsed to no end so I wonder what the intent here is. Maybe scare the Chicken Littles in our midst because ‘home built rocket’ sounds so much like the Katytusha ‘home built rockets’ the Palestinians use against the Israelis and they want the public to draw the conclusion that these are just bigger versions that could have a bigger BOOM?
Probably? Naah, absolutely.
Delia
Bush Admin jumps the Shark Again on Iran.
OMG. the Iranians launched a shark into space.
charlotte
Jesus Christ! Cone of Silence = Crown of Thorns
I hope.
KC
I was never really for against either Hillary or Obama in the primaries. I voted for Hillary, but later went on to support Obama and hoped Hillary would just end it. That said, I’m feeling that for Obama to really get this thing in the bag, the best way is to select Hillary for VP. A lot of excitement appears to have drained from the campaign, and it’s clear the Washington press is totally in the bag for McCain. I can’t see any greater way of revving up excitement and uniting the Dem party.
Delia
Well, now you know why the Bushies told the American people WMD and mushroom cloud fairy tales. Because that’s what the suckers wanted to hear. Present company and the GOS excepted, of course.
Delia
Oh noes. Big tough ex-POW McMaverick has his feelings hurt because that meanie Andrea Mitchell at NBC reported that he may not have been in the cone of silence before the big pastor meeting, and he had his big tough campaign manager guy go down to NBC to complain about her.
elliottg
The interesting thing in my mind is that this would have been Christmas 1969, I think when his wife, Carol was injured in the car accident that would be the subsequent cause of his divorce.
Mike G
So McCain went to a religious forum, and lied about a variety of issues, may have cheated and heard the questions when he was not supposed to, and then stole some of his stories from someone else.
Which makes him about as ‘Christian’ as the denizens of Republican-Jeebus-Wants-Me-To-Be-Rich Orange County tribal megachurch.
Martin
Every time someone in Iran farts, Cheney smells WMDs. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be afraid of absolutely everything.
NR
And now there’s this (via Digby):
“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.
Of course McCain didn’t cheat! He was a POW! Don’t you guys know that’s an answer for everything?
Delia
Um, yeah. The North Vietnamese installed special anti-cheating software in his brain. He can’t cheat. Except on his first wife, of course. And maybe his second.
Big E
‘Pastor’ Rick Warren lied…. simply lied…he said McCain was in the ‘cone of silence’ (with agents 99 & 86) when McCain was not.
it really doesn’t matter where McCain was…..the implication that there would be some kind of ‘fairness doctrine’ by Warren was false.
Another ‘good christian’ who doesn’t understand the meaning of accuracy and truth.
SmilingPolitely
Former prisoner of war? I can’t believe she really said that in her response. Until I clicked the link, I thought you were just being snarky…
Beej
I’m not a political savant, but it seems to me that if I were running for President, and I had enough money to buy hours and hours of ads on TV, radio, and anywhere else I wanted to buy ads, I would probably be smart to spend most of that money AFTER I had wowed the faithful and a TV audience of millions during the Democratic National Convention rather than during the summer doldrums when not that many people are watching anyway. I would also think that the closer to the election these ads are run, the more effective they’re going to be.
In other words, don’t panic, KC, I think things may be a’changin’ in the next two or three weeks.
Conservatively Liberal
Of course it was fine to rip into John Kerry for his alleged service in Vietnam. He wasn’t man enough to get caught and be held as a POW, so he is obviously a liar. But St. John McCain was a POW and it is obvious that a former POW would never lie. John Kerry should have allowed himself to get caught, then everyone would have known that he was an honorable man.
/rightwingnutmodeoff
Mike G
Transcript of a conversation between McCain and Guiliani
G: 9/11
M: Oh, yeah? POW!
G: 9/11, 9/11 and also 9/11
M. POW POW POW POW
G: Uh 9/11?
M: POW
eric k
What I notice is how legalistically worded the reposnses from McCain’s poeple are. They say things like McCain didn;t hear Obama’s answers. They don’t say anything about him knowing the questions or not (like maybe one of his aides simply told him what they would be?) they just state that he didn’t “Hear the broadcast”
cain
How sad, that the first thing that came to mind was Rand ‘Al Thor, the Dragon Reborn. McCain != Rand ‘Al Thor. McCain would use the One Fart™ to do his enemies in. The going insane part is still true.
cain
Calouste
In addition to the Cross in the Sand story, McCain in 1973 wrote that he was relieved by torture from a guard in May 1969, then was moved to another location in December 1969.
So for that same guard to meet him at Christmas and occasionally afterwards, the guard had to move to that location as well. I guess McCain was used to his own personal attendants, and assumed North Vietnamese prison guards just followed him as well.
zuzu's petals
“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war,
cheatedwore stripes with plaid is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.zuzu's petals
Don’t know if I posted this in another thread, but other POWs are perfectly willing to put things in perspective:
Philip Butler
zuzu's petals
Huh?
A AT THE MOMENT OF CONCEPTION. I HAVE A 25-YEAR PRO LIFE RECORD IN THE CONGRESS, IN THE SENATE. AND ASPRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, I WILL BE A PRO LIFE
PRESIDENT AND THIS PRESIDENCY WILL HAVE PRO LIFE POLICIES. THAT’S MY COMMITMENT, THAT’S MY COMMITMENT TO YOU.
Q OKAY. WE DON’T HAVE TO GO LONGER ON THAT ONE.
DEFINE MARRIAGE.
A UNION —A UNION BETWEEN MAN AND WOMAN, BETWEEN
ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN, THAT’S MY DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE.
ARE WE GOING TO GET BACK TO THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPREME COURT JUSTICES.
Q WE’LL GET TO THAT.
A ALL RIGHT. OKAY.
Q YOU GOT ALL MY QUESTIONS, GOOD.
Transcript
YouTube audio
(starting at about 2:10)
JayMi
At this point, I have a rhetorical question: how can we fight evil, when we can even attempt to fight teh stupids?
JayMi
Typo alert!! CAN’T fight the stupids. Fat fingers strike again?!?
4tehlulz
JSM’s first wife would disagree with that assessment.
Conservatively Liberal
I hope McCain keeps it up with the references to his POW years. In fact, I hope that his campaign talks about it at every single chance they get or can connive. Lately, I am having a hard time figuring out what he says more often, ‘my friends’ or telling a POW story.
If he keeps this up, by the time the election comes around people are going to be sick and tired of hearing about his former POW status. Shit, my dad was in Korea and I don’t know anything about it except that somehow he ended up with two broken legs, some nasty scars and bad dreams. He refuses to talk about it to this day. Other relatives served in WWII (very few left alive though), Korea, Vietnam and I (or anyone else in the family) have rarely, if ever, heard them discuss it.
I really hope that McCain just keeps drilling away at the repetition about his POW years. One thing people respect is modesty, and McCain is not being modest about being a former POW. Sure, he says he does not like to talk about it, but lately that seems to be all he and his campaign are saying.
Now it is even used in a rebuttal to a question about his honesty regarding the recent religious forum. What’s pure bluster is their assertion that nobody should question the honesty of a former POW. WTF does being a former POW have to do with honesty? Maybe they are defining it like that because Duke Cunningham was never a POW, unlike McCain, so St. McCain just has to be an honest man.
Keep it up McCain and campaign, keep telling us all about something that you don’t like to talk about. Of course, if anyone makes the observation that he sure talks about it a lot, he will just dismiss it as actions by those in his campaign and so he is not actually the one who is talking about it. Right?
Wrong. Remember that every single message out of the McCain campaign is ‘approved by John McCain’. He approves of this message too.
cleek
My friends, P.O.W., government spending. Thank you.
Xenos
Ranger Rick, Cole is going to bitch at you when he gets up and finds that you fucked up the page by not embedding your kooky links.
Hell, even if they are true nobody will report on them. This has something to do with who owns the media around here. Go long on pitchforks, torches, rails, tar and feathers, in case the public wakes up. But consider it a hedge play.
Seanly
Am I stupid? I don’t understand the story. Solzhenitsyn is about to get a beatdown from the guard. Then some old dude traces the cross in the dirt. Did the magical powers of Teh Cult of The Fish stop the beatdown? The guards are sadistic commie bastards but everything’s going to be okay because there’s at least one more Christian waiting for a shovel to the head.
The more I hear about McCain the less I like the SOB. I just hope Obama doesn’t fuck it up & lose to that miserable jerk.
The Briscoe Kid
As it turns out McCain’s plagiarism was first discovered back in 2005 by some posters at Free Republic.
myiq2xu
Well if the freepers said it then it must be true.
Conservatively Liberal
That is just sooooo priceless! Great score at the GoS, no doubt about it. Now let’s see how fast the right calls the right out…lol!
That takes the sting out of it being a ‘librul’ attack against McCain. If it is called a ‘librul’ attack, the right was leading the way and the left just followed them a bit later! ;)
myiq2xu
(Bareback Andy + Freeperville)Cheetopia = Balloon Juice
That’s really sad
DougJ
We are all Solzhenitsyns now.
Punchy
It’s clear that the Free Republic is just a huge gathering of stoopid lib’rals who hate America.
Conservatively Liberal
I love the smell of hot goat sex in the morning. You know, one time I was loose in a goat pen… for 12 hours. When it was all over, I looked up. I couldn’t find one standing… not one stinkin’ goat. The smell… you know that hot goat sex smell? The whole pen. Smelled like… victory.
Some day this war’s gonna end…
You ought to write a book about your experiences. Be sure to send Bush a signed copy, because I heard that he likes goats too. Just make sure that you include lots of pictures for him. Heck, I bet that your hero St. John of McCain would even like a signed copy from you!
Davis X. Machina
“Cheating” and “lying” are bourgeois concepts, based on antiquated ideas of truth and fairness.
McCain’s answers display at all times revolutionary Truth, becuase they serve to advance the interests of the Party, which is the vanguard of the Glorious Revolution.
This mode of truth transcends, nay, soars above the old, dialectically opposed notion of ‘truth and ‘falsity’.
myiq2xu
How soon they forget
[...]
Oh, and on your McCain and Crypt Keeper quip: You go get tortured as a POW and voluntarily stay imprisoned even though you could leave due to your father’s position. He was tortured even more for staying with the rest of his men.
[...]
McCain may not be the best person politically, but his military record is unimpeachable. He served, and served well.
January 31st, 2008 at 9:42 pm
“They” being “lying, hypocritical sacks of shit”
Xenos
McCain’s numbers are going up, so it appears that people like his simplistic BS. At a certain point the people can be unworthy of their government, even this government.
At this point we are considering emigrating to Germany. Any earthquakes in the Los Angeles area can be attributed to my great grandfather doing a full gymnastics routine within his resting place at Hollywood Forever. But I think my sons will be safer being drafted into the German army than the American one. The irony is that he immigrated here in order to keep his sons from being drafted into the German Army back in the 1880s. Then again, maybe he would understand.
Dan
Did McCain tell the story about the Christmas eve when the Vietnamese and Americans stopped shooting and sang Silent Night across the trenches?
Ed Marshall
People who find this story compelling have no problem believing any number of things more outlandish by a factor of a million…..
Conservatively Liberal
Hey
myiq2xuGoatBoy, just because a McCain supporter like you would like to have someone like me support McCain, sorry to disappoint you but just because you say it is so does not make it so. I know that may come as a shock to you, but such is life Mikey.Rock solid Obama supporter and donor here, as is the rest of my household. We have our thank you cards from Obama, and we get our campaign email and direct mail from our guy too. You PUMA’s (and fellow goat lovers) can keep McGoo all to yourselves. You deserve him. Seriously, you really do!
:D
Dan
You ought to write a book about your experiences. ... Heck, I bet that your hero St. John of McCain would even like a signed copy from you!
But if McCain reads that book, he may start to mis-remember that he had wild goat sex (as a POW, of course).
Conservatively Liberal
Now that is just plain hilarious! Probably true though…lol!
carsick
I’m getting very tired of the “Why we would never break the rules or tell a false story and for you to even suggest we would is impugning the integrity of a POW.”
The cone of silence is just one more example.
-McCain asked for the Supreme Court question before it came up.
-He listed a military man, a legislator from the other party and a business person for his “wise” list. Pretty politically advantageous for a top of his head answer considering he didn’t list his two best buddies Lieberman and Graham.
-He jumped on questions before they were even finished being given numerous times.
The press should stay on this crap and keep asking questions until they get a straight answer.
Ed Drone
A noun, a verb, and “P.O.W.”
Ed
Punchy
OT :
The level of press coverage, hysteria, and fearmongering by FL and fed officials over a simple tropical storm is outrageous. My fav is how these peeps all told the tourists to evacuate. For a simple TS. In August, height of the tourist season. Again, because of some rain and moderate wind. Unreal.
If I’m a souveneir (sp?) shop owner in Marathon or Key West, I’m livid beyond words.
myiq2xu
Pathetic. You put the “fluff” in “fluffer”
Anita
So, does anyone know how Cindy broke her arm or whatever she did to her arm/wrist to be wearing a sling at the Saddleback affair? I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere.
Conservatively Liberal
And you put the “goatfucker” in “goatfucker”, you goatfucker. You ought to head back to the CornFluence so SwampDaughter and the rest of the goatfuckering PUMA’s can worship your vapid meanderings.
All we do here is laugh at you, but I do have to admit that that in itself is pretty entertaining.
Dan
So, does anyone know how Cindy broke her arm or whatever … ?
She broke it sliding down the pole at the Miss Buffalo Chip Beauty Pageant.
Conservatively Liberal
I thought she was hiding the remote control for John in her sling. That way she could operate him from across the room and nobody would catch her.
wasabi gasp
Johnny McFables, decked out in long underwear, a bowler hat and a rubber penis strapped to his nose, knocked her down, and began beating her with a large white porcelain cock and balls statue. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
AkaDad
To be fair, McCain has rejected only 3 of the 10 commandments.
cleek
someone shook her hand
really
she’s made of crepe paper and spiderweb
Punchy
St. John forgot his Viagra
nightjar
Better described as the MCcain Cone of Inanity.
Dan
re Punchy –
Yes, we should base our level of weather reporting on how it will affect Key West souvenir shop owners. If people are cut off from the mainland without water and food, they can amuse themselves with an assortment of seashell necklaces and coconuts carved with whimsical faces.
Corner Stone
Are you auditioning for something here?
Shorter CL:
“Love me! LOVE MEEEEE!!”
horatius
John Cole has MDS. McBush Derangement Syndrome. Why? Solzenytsin was, but a wee lad, when Mccain was tortured at the Hanoi Hilton. How dare you question Mccain’s war record?
Conservatively Liberal
I was having fun in
myiq2xu’sGoatBoy’s goat pen while he was away, but he came back and breathlessly told me that there were some fresh goats here. I am looking everywhere I can, but I can’t find any goats here. What’s a goatfucker to do?Go back to GoatBoy’s play pen and be happy with the worn out goats there? Learn to enjoy sloppy seconds? Turn to sheep for comfort?
LITBMueller
The other people who have this problem a lot are OLD PEOPLE!
Corner Stone
You have one shtick and it is teh lah-aim. Of course I’m always amazed you can type anything while you’re massaging Obama’s sack. Or does your Significant Other do that for you when you have a mouthful and need to type something pithy?
KevinD
He does seem to have a taste for the Ultra-Violence.
Mike G
Solzhenitsyn also harshly criticised what he saw as the ugliness and spiritual vapidity of the dominant pop culture of the modern West
So McCain admires a Russian nationalist who detests the American culture manufactured by our sacred corporations, all at a time when Russia is Hitler of the Week™ for invading Georgia?
Why Does He Hate America™?
Confederate Yankee
The problem with the theory that McCain’ stole his story for Solzhenitsyn? According to a fellow POW, McCain was telling the story while a POW in 1971… years prior to Solzhenitsyn’s book being published.
chopper
wow, somebody ‘vaguely recalls’ the story? shit, that’s it right there. i mean, mccain ‘vaguely recalls’ that al qaeda is being trained by iran, so that must be true also.
John PM
From the NRO story cited by Confederate Yankee:
Clearly, a former fellow POW of John McCain who is campaigning for McCain would have no reason to claim that he vaguely recalls McCain telling the story. There is absolutely no bias at all.
Now if Phillip Butler, another former fellow POW of McCain’s says that he recalls hearing the story from McCain while they were in captivity, I would tend to believe it. For those who did not know, Phillip Butler wrote an article for Military Magazine in March 2008 in which he set forth the reasons he would not be voting for John McCain. Here is the page:
http://www.military.com/opinio....._1,00.html
Something tells me that Byron York and/or NRO will not be placing that telephone call any time soon.
John
I so don’t trust republicans, and McCain’s performance the other night made me throw up a bit, but who’s to say that this isn’t true. Just because it’s also a story from a book doesn’t mean he didn’t have a similar experience.
I think he should get the benefit of the doubt for a number of reason, not the least of which, telling a former POW that he’s lying about his experience is sometimes viewed as douche-y
wobbly
This actually could have happened to John McCain.
Some “gook” actually might have loosened his ropes on Christmas Eve and drawn a cross in the dirt to cheer him up.
The “gook” may have been a Catholic. He may have been a Buddhist. He may have been a thoroughly convinced Communist.
All of the above,were,in fact,DRAFTED,into the People’s Army of Viet Nam.
Gotta love those PAVN vets.
Too bad nobody ever gets to talk to them anymore.
Delia
Yeah. A fellow POW who’s campaigning for McCain isn’t too reliable, especially if he only “vaguely remembers.” That statement is a CYA move if ever I saw one. But ya know, like I said way up in this thread, this story is a red herring in any case. As Phillip Butler mentions in the article John PM just linked to, St. McCain is not actually a religious man, and this Faith Promoting Story allows him to make the faithful feel good while deflecting attention from the fact that he has said absolutely nothing about his own alleged faith. He just focuses attention on his suffering as a POW (ONE MORE TIME, everybody) and on the anonymous Vietnamese prison guard. It’s like a magic trick. You assume it means John McCain is religious, but it’s all sleight of mouth. I’m just sick of listening to the same story over and over again, especially now that it’s been exposed.
chopper
what if another POW ‘vaguely remembered’ mccain spilling it to the north vietnamese?
i mean, come on, people. i tend to avoid mccain’s whole ‘hey look, i’m a big hero!’ shtick but come on. this whole ‘cross in the dirt’ thing is pretty obviously cribbed.
Downpuppy
Drafted or not, they were one of the greatest armies EVAH. Kicked us out of Vietnam with a fraction of our firepower.
Back in those days, there were 3 armies that man for man had the best Infantry: Israel, N Vietnam, & the UK. (We suspected the Swiss had something special too, but nobody dared find out)
jbarntt
Micahel D. Said:
The other possibility is that McCain really thinks this happened to him, and can’t differentiate between something he read and something he actually experienced. I’m pretty convinced that he experienced no such thing. As Rickrocket notes: “Somehow I doubt that Alexander Solzhenitsyn heard John McCain’s story and copied it.”
Please explain why you are so convinced. It would seem likely that McCain would remember what he read and what he experienced as a POW.
I do like the quote from Rickrocket, that it is doubtful that the Russian heard McCain’s story and copied it. Nice strawman argument ! Did anyone ever say any such thing ? Of course not, Solzhenitsyn wrote prior to McCain.
Why would it be unusual that prisoners in somewhat similar circumstances would have had somewhat similar experiences ?
If Solzhenitsyn is credible re: how a Christian behaved in a communist society, why is McCain not ?
zuzu's petals
From the comments section at Politico:
Politico blog
From an April 2008 Politico story:
“I don’t recall us talking specifically about our faith,” says Orson Swindle, one of McCain’s closest friends and a fellow POW. “We talked about our friends, families, our resistance posture, and that our country didn’t seem to have the will to win.”
Belief in a higher power helped them survive the routine torture and daily indignities, Swindle says.
“It would help us endure what we had to endure. But we knew God wasn’t going to come down and wave a magic wand.”
Politico
jbarntt
My guess? No one will ask McCain about it for fear of being accused of questioning his patriotism.
Of course no one other than liberals will ask the question, because it is plain that McCain is a patriot. Of course to a liberal being a patriot is a bad thing. That’s why liberals like Obama so much.
It is interesting that liberals live in fear of being accused of not being patriotic. Why is that ? Maybe because they aren’t ?