Is someone who loses 4 planes in peacetime and then gets captured after 20 hours of combat a hero?

[Onlooker]

[MadBadger]

1. Of all the things you can hit McCain on, this isnt one of them.

[DangerDave921]

2. Exactly

I know it plays well to some folks, but to the average American, making fun a guy who spent 5-6 years in a POW camp is not the way to win an election. The guy served in the military, fought in wartime, and was a POW.

Hammer him for the current reasons why he would not make a good president.

[FSogol]

5. I agree. n/t

[mb7588a]

13. Agreed. This is shameful and should be deleted. nt.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. Agree this thread is crap. Wish we could rate it Disruptive.

[YOY]

3. Don't question his military service.

It can only backfire. He has indeed sacrificed a lot in the name of his country. He has indeed put his ass on the line as opposed to Chimpy who hasn't and wouldn't do jack shit.

It's just post sacrifice he because a rich neo-con who shit on a lot of people to get where he is.

He's got a lot of faults and his service is not one of them.

Let him repeat his own "POW" line every 5 seconds. Only the truly thick aren't getting the picture that he is abusing it as a political tool.

[NYC_SKP]

4. We can't politically successfully hit him on this.

But any objective analysis of his record is that he was and remains incompetent.

Being captured doing something heroic is heroic.

Being shot down while flying high above your victims is not, and in fact could have been negligent, careless, stupid, or even cowardly depending on the circumstances.

[nc4bo]

6. I KNOW we can't but his behavior throughout his senatorial career have forced me

to question just how heroic his actions were during his military career especially his time as a POW.

I am so sorry for saying it but I just can't help it.

[leftofcool]

7. If you want Obama to win, stay away from this

[ProgressiveEconomist]

11. Agreed. As long as the economy is on the front pages, Dems don't need to use this.

But keep on researching the issue just in case there's a WH "October Surprise". We ust might need to roll this out during the last week of the campaign. Here are some good resources:

In January, USNews put ONLINE a LONG 1973 McCain autobiographical confession of collaboration with the North Vietnamese. at http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html .

Also, did you know an ad with fellow POW Philip Butler exposing McCain's "POW" claim on the Presidency already is online? See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6931737 .

Other good resources are Jeffrey Klein's article for The Nation at http://www.nationinstitute.org/ifunds/79/mccain_s_secret_questionable_record

a DU thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6879910&mesg_id=6879910 ;

and DailyKos diaries searchable at http://www.dailykos.com/tag/POW . particularly http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/28/114523/989/295/577363 .

[intaglio]

8. Problem ... the word "Hero" has been degraded

In times past the hero would have been one of the many servicemen who did NOT betray their country because of torture. People who gave in to torture would have been regarded as normal humans, not one of the extraordinary humans who deserve the title Hero. Now it seem that all you have to do to be called a hero is to join the military of your country and claim you are willing to put yourself in harms way.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. He should have never entered politics

He's mentally and emotionally unsuited to make big decisions that affect millions of people. And he has milked his war experiences every single day of his political life. I think merely surviving a POW camp is something heroic, especially someone who was injured before capture. My dad was a B-17 co-pilot shot down over Germany and became a POW of the Germans. He had both legs busted at the hip and they didn't heal while he was in captivity and he had to wait until after the war to get adequate medical attention. He weighed less than 100 lbs. when he came out of the camp. I think we need to separate what McCain did during the war from his political life.

[musicblind]

10. McCain was a war hero. Get over it. Attack him on his stupidity in politics and the fact that

he would make a horrible president. Attack him on the fact that being a war hero DOES NOT make him more eligible to be president. Attack him on the Keating 5 scandal. Attack him on forgetting to vet his VP. Attack him on this ridiculous political stunt of "suspending" his campaign... when it is now obvious that he always intended to debate Obama because McCain sponsored ads proclaiming him the "winner" leaked early.

Attack him on lots of things. But trying to claim he is not a war hero wont work. He went through hell and did not back down. He stood up for his country even when given the option to leave.

I give credit where credit is due and take credit where it is not due. I think showing that we are UNBIASED yet still have disdain for president McCain makes our argument seem more rational and more poignant.

[Onlooker]

12. But, by his own account he backed down at least twice

(1) when he was first injured he offered to give military secrets in exchange for hospitalization
(2) he signed a bogus confession in order to win his freedom

He also did propaganda recordings for the North Vietnamese, but I'm not sure if he himself has stated that.

He was a victim, an ordinary human in a situation that gave him the choice of living or dying, but he was no hero unless you think everyone who finds themselves in a terrible situation is one.

[tinrobot]

15. He suffered greatly for his country. That does make him a hero.

It doesn't matter what he did/didn't do or say while being starved and tortured by the North Vietnamese. He made it out alive, that's more than enough to qualify him as a hero. I doubt anyone here could stand up to that sort of abuse and not break.

While John McCain may be a war hero, he's still horribly underqualified to run this country.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. He was tortured, duh. Everytime you push his military record it's like McCain saying POW. Drop it.

[slackmaster]

14. Other

[suston96]

16. 20 hours in aerial combat is a long time. Talk about his politics....there is plenty there...nt