NYT video hypes McCain's POW years: Politics Forged in a Prison Cell

[ProSense]

Video: Politics Forged in a Prison Cell

John McCain's five years of imprisonment and torture was a defining moment, not only personally but also in forging his politics concerning the nature both the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

It's the featured video on the NYT blog page

Featuring Bud "Swift Lying Asshole" Day

[ProSense]

1. McCain campaign using Swift Liar to vouch for McCain on cross story

After a brief conversation with Col. Bud Day, I can confirm that Col. Day is most likely the toughest man alive in addition to being the most decorated Air Force veteran in history. Some of the details Day shared with the McCain Report are too gory to reproduce here, but he did confirm that "not long after we all got back together ," McCain told him the story of the prison guard who drew a cross in the dirt one Christmas.

"We were bringing each other up to date, he was telling me how he had been tortured," Day said. The guards had "busted his arm," and "John was complaining that they'd treated him like an animal." Day said "the only friendly thing the ever did was hit me on the leg instead of on the head." But, according to Day, McCain wouldn't condemn them all, telling the other men of the occasional act of decency he'd witnessed from his captors. Day says McCain told him how one of those guards had "made a cross with his foot and wiped it out."

Andrew Sullivan is sure that McCain is lying--and that the other men who served with him are lying as well--because McCain didn't tell this story to an appropriate media outlet at a time and place of Sullivan's choosing. But just imagine what Sullivan's response might look like if some right-wing blogger was challenging an element of Obama's biography, an element that could never be definitively proven or disproved, and which there was no reason to doubt beyond this or that circumstantial detail and an absence of irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

link

[ProSense]

2. Andrew Sullivan rebuts Swift Liar

From Swift Liar Day's statement:

Day says McCain told him how one of those guards had "made a cross with his foot and wiped it out."

(emphasis added)

Sullivan: So the ad imagery with the stick is wrong, according to Day. And no Christmas dating.

[ProSense]

3. Frankly,

I think too many people and the McCain camp are protesting too much.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. They are spending their precious Money and Time on this

which raises the ante to the pot. It touched a nerve, which is really an open wound
that they know makes them vulnerable.

[ProSense]

5. Bet they'll

think twice before using this lie again. I don't understand the reluctance of some to call McCain out on his lies.