MoDo on the overuse of the POW excuse

[deminks]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/opinion/24dowd.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1219583473-T8bKY+Dg3dE8eNSz7uq/Qg

(snip)

The ordeal also gave a more sympathetic cast to his carousing. As Robert Timberg wrote in “John McCain: An American Odyssey,” “What is true is that a number of P.O.W.’s, in those first few years after their release, often acted erratically, their lives pockmarked by drastic mood swings and uncharacteristic behavior before achieving a more mellow equilibrium.” Timberg said Hemingway’s line that people were stronger in the broken places was not always right.

So it’s hard to believe that John McCain is now in danger of exceeding his credit limit on the equivalent of an American Express black card. His campaign is cheapening his greatest strength — and making a mockery of his already dubious claim that he’s reticent to talk about his P.O.W. experience — by flashing the P.O.W. card to rebut any criticism, no matter how unrelated. The captivity is already amply displayed in posters and TV advertisements.

The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the pastor who married Jenna Bush and who is part of a new Christian-based political action committee supporting Obama, recently criticized the joke McCain made at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally encouraging Cindy to enter the topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest. The McCain spokesman Brian Rogers brought out the bottomless excuse, responding with asperity that McCain’s character had been “tested and forged in ways few can fathom.”

When the Obama crowd was miffed to learn that McCain was in a motorcade rather than in a “cone of silence” while Obama was being questioned by Rick Warren, Nicolle Wallace of the McCain camp retorted, “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.”

(end snip)

Emphasis mine - one could expect some erratic behavior (doesn't excuse it) for a few years after release (1973), but 35 years later?

More at the link

[grannie4peace]

1. he cheated in nam , why wouldn't he cheat here

[beac]

2. He really is out of control with the POW thing,

finding ways to insert it into conversations on even the most banal of topics:

Explaining that his favorite song was ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba, he offered that his knowledge of music ‘stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile.’ ‘Dancing Queen,’ however, was produced in 1975, eight years after McCain’s plane was shot down.”


He wants respect, but he cheapens the term POW for everyone who suffered.

[tekisui]

3. I am starting to hear on the airwaves that he overplayed the pow-card.

He is becoming a caricature of himself, like rudy911. The powshine has dulled, and will be a non-issue soon.