McCain's military service and POW status....

[Wetzelbill]

It seems that John McCain has managed to take a great political strength and given it, at least, some negative aspects.

McCain's service and time as a POW was his greatest strength, and absolutely off limits for critique. The media would have went nuts if anybody had dared to challenge St. John on it, and Dems wouldn't go that route anyway.

But McCain and his campaign have so trivialized his years as a POW by using it as an excuse for every inane thing he does or has ever done that it's getting to be a running joke. Similar to Rudy Giuliani's exploitation and trivialization of 9/11, McCain has gone to the well so much you simply can't take him serious.

McCain wasn't in a cone of silence? Well, how dare you accuse a POW of cheating!

McCain is such an elitist he can't remember how many houses he has? Well, he spent several years in prison without a house!

McCain cheated on his first wife? Yeah, but he spent years getting beaten in prison!

McCain is out of touch on the everyday kitchen table needs of the American people? John McCain spent several years in prison without a kitchen table... or even a chair!

Or as it turns out a sense of shame either.

I suppose it's effective and has been for him. He famously used it in his first run for Congress when he was accused of being a carpetbagger and he retorted that the longest he ever lived in one place was a prison in Hanoi. But McCain has always portrayed himself as a humble hero who doesn't like to talk about being a POW, this while he is peddling a book, starring in a documentary, or some other venue where he is.... TALKING ABOUT HIS POW EXPERIENCE.

And for sure it is interesting. It's a fantastic story and a part of history. I watched a documentary on Vietnam POWs that McCain was in not that long ago. It great. And he was great in it.

But none of that necessarily qualifies McCain to be president. Nor does it excuse bad behavior, bad policy or ignorant views. I think the bottom line is that McCain has lived off of his biography for around 40 years now. It's caused him to be intellectually lazy because he is able to get away with so much. Not to mention, McCain wasn't exactly the most cerebral and studious person before he was shot down and imprisoned either. He famously finished near dead last in his Annapolis class.

It seems McCain uses being a POW as a crutch for everything. People sort of presume McCain is a foreign policy expert because of his military and POW experience. So when McCain says something stupid like the Sunni and Shia have no history of violence in Iraq, or that the Russia-Georgia conflict is the first major international crisis since the end of the Cold War, people give him a pass. But he's catastrophically wrong with those statements. And he's wrong about everything. His solution to everything is ill thought out force and/or pure bluster. He has nothing else. McCain's policy ideas and plans have little or no substance. From foreign policy to health care to taxes etc.

McCain offers not specifics and no real solutions to anything.

But he's a POW.

That's about all he has.

And now that he's trivialized that to the point of mockery, I doubt that is going to be enough to win him an election.

[calimary]

1. A Noun, A Verb, and P.O.W.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Noun-A-Verb-and-P-O-W-by-Mary-Lyon-080823-951.html

[DesertFlower]

2. the problem is for some

people that's enough to vote for him. i've heard people say "he was POW and he's been a senator for a long time -- he must be okay." it's the same mentality that got bush elected 2x.

[Wetzelbill]

4. Oh yeah

That and they think he's a maverick and a little different than Bush. People like a rebel, and McCain has invented a good narrative for himself.

[NJmaverick]

3. McCain was a POW?

I didn't know that. Why didn't he tell people?

[Wetzelbill]

5. as hard as it is to believe

He has mentioned it once or twice.