Thumbs Up To McCain Cheated, Thumbs Down to McCain Made Up His POW Experiences

Today we got two different scripts which we can use over the next couple of days. How convenient. One is crystal clear, a story that every American can understand.

I. It Was the Best of Tales or McCain Cheated

The preacher who was hosting the so called religious forum for the two major party presidential candidates lied to the audience and the American people. He said that though Obama would be asked the questions first, McCain would get no advantage, because he would be in a cone of silence. The performance of the two men left many wondering if McCain had been fed the questions (and maybe even Obama’s replies) in advance. Today, the New York Times broke this story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/us/politics/18mccain.html?ref=politics



This is a very straight forward story. It is like cheating on a game show, except more important because it involves the fate of the nation. The public is going to have no trouble at all figuring this one out.

The other story is extremely convoluted and as tricky as hand grenade that could explode in the face of the one who tries to lob it.

II. It Was the Worst of Tales or McCain Made Up His POW Experiences

Be honest. Would you feel comfortable saying those six words? McCain made up his POW experiences. Even if you knew that after the murmurs of disapproval from the crowd die down, you would be given a chance to explain yourself? It is a no win proposition.

Even though several different people at Daily Kos have gone through the logic trees that brought them to the conclusion that McCain plagiarized the story of the North Vietnamese guard drawing the cross in the sand on Christmas from the writing of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, this story bothers me. For one thing, this post from Kos mentions that he has told the story before, at least twice once in 1999 and once in 2000.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/17/15300/5629/128/569386

Reporters with his campaign should have been familiar with it and since reporters read books, I will bet that at least one of them had read Solzhenitsyn. More importantly, someone with the Bush campaign should have done the usual oppo on it and discovered that it came from the writing of Solzhenitsyn. We all know that it is standard practice for Republican oppo to take ever story that the opponent tells and analyze it to see if they can turn it to the opponents disadvantage. This Atlantic article called Playing Dirty describes the process.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200406/green

There is also Digging the Dirt from the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/archive/981759.stm



If this dirt was out there about McCain in 2000, chances are that Karl Rove knew about it. Why does that matter in 2008? The favorite tactic of Karl Rove, Bush Sr. and Dick Cheney when confronted by one scandal is to manufacture another crisis or scandal in hopes of distracting the public. The worst example of this in recent memory is the timing of the release of the final Florida recount results which showed Gore won to coincide with the 9/11 attacks which we now know the Bush administration expected to occur---though they claim they did not know the nature of the attacks.

Where do people pick up stories? Who plants clues on the internet? How do rumors get started? I do not know who first told someone else Psst. I think John McCain stole that cross in the sand story from Solzhenitsyn. Pass it on. . I do know that this narrative is much less damaging to the McCain Brand Name that this first one I mention above---and it has tremendous potential to backfire on the Obama camp.

III. A Comparison of the Two Tales

In McCain is a Cheater Obama is the victim. He went into the forum hoping for a fair battle of words, and McCain and the host Rick Warren conspired to make a fool of him, by letting McCain upstage him. Obama played by the rules. The audience clapped for McCain only because he is a big fat cheater. Shame on McCain. Is that how he got ahead his whole life? With special favors?

In McCain made up his POW experiences you can not ignore the fact that McCain is the victim. He is a former POW. He was tortured and starved. So what if he made up a story about one of his guards? If he had murdered one of his guards, the public would forgive him for doing it. So what if no guard drew a cross in the sand for him? Maybe he wished that one would. Maybe he fantasized about it. Maybe he got home, read the book, and part of the process of working out his anger at his captors involved making Solzhenitsyn’s moment of reconciliation with his captor’s his own. This is a very complicated story that involves focusing attention on McCain’s strongest selling point---his war years. In the end, the press could turn this all on Obama as in Obama told his people to claim that McCain’s POW experiences were lies

Now, wouldn’t that look lovely splashed across the headlines of some major newspaper. And wouldn’t the people posing as disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters love to add to the mess with their “He did to same thing to our candidate!”

Having made a study of Bush Family lying, cheating and dirty tricks tactics, I know that when they know that bad news---like the NYTs story---is coming down the pipeline, they always engineer a distraction. Always. That is what I think the Solzhenitsyn story is. A great big fat distraction. A tar baby, if you will. Look, but do not get sucked in.

Instead, demand to know why we were lied to. How could a man who claims to be a minister conduct a spectacle like the one last night and how could a major party presidential candidate like John McCain participate in it? Write the television stations which aired it. Demand answers. Was that supposed to be TV journalism or a made for TV movie? Where does the line between news end and propaganda begin? How can we believe in any future debate that includes a man who is a known cheater?

That is where the real story is at.

But do not try to get cute and do two stories at once. That is not how the news works.

It's gone from a guard with a modicum of compassion to one who was a practicing Christian, despite being North Vietnamese. Thanks for your concern, but McCain should not be getting a pass for this. He's making shit up decades after his POW experience. If this is truly a belated manifestation of his trauma, then it's all the more reason that he's deeply unfit to lead this nation.

we all "morph" stories along the way. American will, and can, give him a pass.

The problem with the cross story is that to tell it, you have to say "McCain, POW, and cross" all in the same sentence.

The other story you get to say "McCain, cheated, lied" all in the same sentence.

and none for "McCain cheated."

I don't want America to think the dems throw out allegations of cheating lightly in the latter instance, but the burden of proof should be on McCain that this gun guard thing actually happened.

I totally disagree with the OP about which horse is a winner.

The NYTs supplied it.

and to speculate, IMO, is to become Swiftboaters ourselves. We have negatives to use against McCain without going there.

A prisoner of war with physical damage still apparent, plus the symbol of the cross? I don't think we want to touch that combination. As I posted above, there are plenty of negatives to use against McCain without using this.

I do think we make a mistake by not examining the mental damage McCain suffered as a prisoner of war and how that frames his thinking on virtually everything, making him a warmonger extraordinaire.

The first one is nice, short, and simple: McCain (possibly) had the questions in advance. Whether you like his answers or not, there's a basic standard of playing fair that people at least like to think exists in politics. One thing I'd refrain from, though, is bringing Warren into the deceit. That is, the lies are all on McCain's side. For Warren's parishioners and followers, it's basically whichever side he's on is the moral side, so if you lump him with McCain, then McCain gets the benefit of the doubt because "Warren would never lie to his parishioners."

If he's a fellow victim, however, then the sheep are allowed to be angry at McCain: he lied to Pastor Warren! He made a righteous man lie! McCain and his team of Bush people lied to him and us!

It also gives Warren an easy out for coming clean if he was in fact knowingly lying about the "cone of silence." ("Look, you get to play the victim and milk you parishioners for sympathy, and when he's president, Obama won't come down on you like a ton of bricks for trying to fuck him over.")


With the second one, just think of how they and their friends in the media turned Wesley Clark's absolutely correct remarks about being tortured as a POW having no relevance to executive leadership experience into "HE'S QUESTIONING POW AND WAR HERO SENATOR JOHN McCAIN'S WAR EXPERIENCE!!!11!!!!" And that was when the criticism was coming from a general and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander!

When Warren told the audience McCain was in a cone of silence, then asked McCain whether it was comfortable in there, the implication is that he'd seen McCain going in there. Pastors are generally friendly people at least on the surface; you'd think he would have met the candidates before the event even if only for a few minutes.

McCain not even being in the building before the lights went up changes things considerably.

and that he did not break his promise to be in the cone of silence while Obama was questioned. When Warren asked McCain about the cone of silence, McCain should have fessed up---but he lied. There is video of that.

If anyone from his campaign had in fact read Solzhenitsyn and noticed the similarity in the "cross" stories, wouldn't you think McPOW would have been strongly advised to NEVER EVER tell that story? as a precaution? Even if an innocent coincidence?

Actually, I'm sure they'll find one or two. They already have (uncle liberated death camps, etc).

No more nicey-nice. You don't get to play the "get out of jail for free POW card" for life. John McCain is running for President of the United States, and there will be uncomfortable questions to answer.

Answer them, or pull the Straight Talk Express off to the side of the road.

have enough hard evidence to stick. The OP is right about it leaving McCain as the victim as well. If the story plays for just a little though, it will start occur to people(and maybe Newsmakers)that the McCain campaign are serial plagarists. We have Cookie-gate and Wiki-gate both of which got some MSM play. With the sloppiness of his campaign, can we doubt that we'll see more?

Ted

We don't have to touch it. There will be several 527s that are going to go after McCain's POW credibility in the fall.

If you aren't sure what the stories about him, Google "Johnny Songbird".

and attacking any of them is a losing situation. He was a POW and there is no way to change that. Any criticism of his "stories" won't be accepted by the public. They have a legitimate war hero and they won't care of he told someone else's story or embellished on his own. They want to believe whatever he says about his experiences as a POW and will blame anyone but McSame if those stories are questioned.

Reagan lied about being in WW2. McCain wants to be just like Reagan so he lied to. They both watched to many movies.

You can say some of the facts may have been played with over the years, but it is a fact he was held by the North Vietnamese.

He should be smacked down for that.

he was very insincere, inconsistent, and somewhat rabid.

Distance is somethow important to me. I feel Bush oozes a serious punch of evil. I see it as sealed with the Bush McCain hug and the Bush Lieberman kiss. The recent photo of Pelosi with her hand on Bush's shoulder left me uneasy.

We know what the Cheney-Bush orders have meant to millions of people and the earth. It is all inhumane and dsstructive.

What has happened in this decade will be talked and written about for centuries if we continue to analyze history.

I just hope we've hit bottom.

If South America can throw out their rulers and oppressors ..... can't we? We have to exile the oil and war people to Dubai and start over as a country and maybe as a Hemisphere. But they love our taxes. They misdirect it, steal, attempt to give it to their friend by privatizing it, then rant against being handed out to us.

McCain - more of the same.

Just remember that they drag the little people into their wars between leaders by swaying the little people to believe and act on the behalf of a few who get the profits.

Their agendas are kept secret. If it wasn't just for them, they could share with us what the hell they are trying to attain, instead of lying their way through everything they do for the barons.

That was written some time ago. There should be a simple test. Does that comprehensive book tell the story about the Christian guard drawing a cross in the dirt. If it does, the story is legitimate. If is doesn't it strongly suggests that McCain lifted it.

I trust the quotes are accurate. The two experiences are eerily similar, causing issues with a smell test. The question then becomes how much slack do you afford to a former POW. Frankly, I was also bothered by his answer that his toughest decision ever was the one not to take North Vietnam up on an offer of freedom. The military code of conduct demands that you do as McCain did or face a courts marshall. McCain clearly made the right decision but did he really have any other choice?

and said they weren't mistreating him, and then he confessed that he was an air pirate and the US was guilty of war crimes.

If McCain was making up his POW experience, I assume he could make it more heroic than that.

I understand your point, but it all adds up to the same thing, so both issues are important. McCain is a liar and a cheat.
Rick Warren, who could well be complicit, is to be on Larry King live tonight. Please email your post to him, and all the other news stations as well.
I can't wait till KO gets his teeth around this one.

Poor John McCain. He's gotten to the point where he confuses reality with things he read in a book.

People are much more likely to understand and be persuaded by that then cries of "he cheated!" It's a worse flaw, it's more believable and it fits with existing perceptions.

is pretty weak, and doesn't necessarily make McCain a "cheater."

On the other hand, I see McCain stealing or confusing his POW stories with Solzhenitzyn as pretty devastating to him- either way.

Why is that so hard?

POW experience.

Too many DUers don't get this. Campaigning for president is about marketing, not about counting who gets the most "gotchas" against the other side. You have to talk to people where they're at. And where people are at is not questioning the valor of someone who got tortured for wearing an American uniform.

People understand and believe in fair play.

You're confusing valor with integrity. Most people aren't questioning his valor, people are questioning his integrity.



Which is exactly why McCain should be called out for his repeated lies.

Well, try "utterly despicable". It's not enough that he has been honored over the years by his countrymen as a hero because he was held as a POW for five and a half years. It's not enough to just say "I served my country during wartime and survived a horrible experience as a POW". It's not enough to say "Thank you for electing me to the Senate and for holding me in such high esteem that you are willing to nominate me for President". It's not enough to use his POW experience as a hammer to nail himself to the cross again and again so we Americans can see what a gallant, heroic figure he is.

NO, HE HAS TO LIE ABOUT IT.

HE HAS TO EMBELLISH IT.

HE HAS TO MAKE HIMSELF SEEM LARGER AND MORE HEROIC THAN HE WAS.

The man has become pathetic. He has squandered all of the respect and honor we Americans have showered on him since he returned from North Vietnam.

Now he's seeking to become the single most powerful human being on the planet and YOU ARE WILLING TO GIVE HIM A PASS ON THIS ABOMINABLE LIE.

I'm astonished. This is more Pelosi-style cowardice.

Just lay out the facts, tell the truth. Over and over and over again. Just like the Repukes tell their lies over and over and over again.

Let the 527's expose this lying piece of shit for what he is.

There are plenty of POW's who are willing to tell the truth about McAnus. They are already on record. Use this to expose him. He is a megalomaniac who will say anything to win the Presidency. We cannot allow that to happen.

they will anyway. Just because the media won't, according to you, pick up the plagiarism controversy doesn't mean it won't get out there via other mediums.

It is the drip, drip, drip concept. Each indication of dishonesty on McCain's part reduces the public's belief in his honesty and that can only be a good thing.

Let's NOT play the media's game this time, let's use the mediums available to get the stories out.

Backing off BECAUSE McCain was a POW is exactly what the repubs want and have worked very hard to convince everyone it is "unpatriotic". It seems it has worked with some, unfortunately.

Today, cone of silence and crossgate will get media play. McCamy's OP is exactly right to assert we should hammer McCain with his phony cone of silence and suspiciously crisp answers.

Today, we can expect that whenever anyone brings up the cone of silence, the Repubs and their Media surrogates will immediately and angrily throw up the cross story as a shield, trying to confuse the issue.

"Unbelievable! How can anyone say he cheated? These are the same people who are saying he copies his POW experiences from old novels. It's regrettable that there are those in the Obama camp who would question a former POW, a war hero like John McCain. Obama is really playing dirty lately. Why not say McCain never even went to Vietnam?"

They're going to try and morph "cone of silence" into crossgate, then attack back with "How dare you question a former POW," trying to pin crossgate on Obama whether or not he or his campaign has even mentioned it.

Let crossgate fade away. The "cone of silence" was a complete lie. McCain's answers were far too quick, and in one case he answered a three-part question before it was even asked.

while hitting back strongly on issues. It always has. But for the rest of us, I'm quite happy that progressive talk shows and etc. cover the whole "character" issue and question the phony's tall tales.

The immediate McCain campaign response to the breaking of the "cone of silence" lie was something like "how DARE the Obama people question an ex-POW's honesty!!" The McCain campaign uses the line about "ex-POW hero" for every purpose, for every justification and reasoning, however unrelated -- because it's McCain's only trump card. I see nothing wrong with questioning it. I see nothing wrong with explaining that yah, McCain barely passed Naval Academy, coming in 894 of 899 and no doubt only did that well because of nepotism. And yah, McCain was a playboy asshole disrespectful of rules and Naval codes, and his "cross in the sand" tale is highly unlikely, esp. considering reasons given.

along with a follow up of the "McCain Cheated" story----just as predicted.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/who-knew-what-when/


And the "Cross in the Sand" has an important spot at the end of the article. The Times puts the best stuff at the lead and at the finish because those are the only portions that some people read. "Daily Kos" is buzzword for "Obama Nation".

What the NYTs does not address is that the audience was not told that McCain (or Obama) had received questions in advance. Obama can answer questions that are given to him now or last week. However, McCain can not answer questions off the cuff----which is the impression which the show attempted to give to the audience.

Warren's excuse---that both men received some questions in advance---really just makes it all worse, because it reveals that he was part of the charade. America thought that it was witnessing McCain answering questions he had never heard before. It thought that it was seeing John McCain using brain cells that it did not know that he possessed.

Now, we find out that John McCain was simply delivering prepared answers----and the producers of the show hid that fact from us with their cone of silence bs.

says, imo, the exact opposite of what you are saying. Both questions of his honesty have now been mentioned by the MSM that many have said they would not even touch. Whether it is in the lead or the last paragraph, it is there.

I DO love this tidbit the NYT included re the "cross in the sand" controversy:

"And over at the liberal DailyKos, they are noting that conservatives at Free Republic first raised doubts about the story in 2005."

That should allay your concerns that this can be turned on Obama, shouldn't it?

Against the spam that's out there.

http://www.alternet.org/election08/94700/top_10_idiocies_of_the_general_election_..._so_far/?page=entire

If McCain is lying about this stuff, it turns his greatest strength into a weakness, which is just what Rove does to our guys.

This is the fake POW story that has legs. Push it. Push it. Push it.

but if you really feel like it, you can post another dozen threads in vain

All from the disappointed camp.

McCain's POW experience is the single indispensable element of his campaign. It makes his "character" unassailable as long as the narrative remains intact and he is not seen as trying to embellish his experience or profit from his former POW status. He jeopardizes the second half of that equation when he starts telling bogus POW stories.

The cross in the sand story is suspect, but the two stories (McCain and Solzhenitsyn) are similar, not identical. That dispute will die or be turned into an example of unpatriotic liberals disrespecting the "war hero."

I believe the Steeler story is potentially far more damaging...http://kdka.com/video/?id=43538@kdka.dayport.com

This version of the story is contradicted by McCain himself in his autobiography in which he relates giving his captors the names of Green Bay Packers. All the guys who listen to sports radio and don't know Solzhenitsyn from salami will see McCain's slime trail in a heartbeat when they hear the Steeler-oops-Packer story.

McCain is too 'umble by 'alf.

The fundies are already nervous about McCaint. Now he comes up with this heart-wrenching story to give himself great Christian cred. It's highly effective to point out that it's probably bogus. It just reinforces people's suspicions that McCaint is pretending to be more Christian than he is.

he makes them up so he becomes a target.


The idea that a North Vietnamese Regular specially trained for sadistic and security purity would turn out to be a closet Christian and then want to secretly share this is laughable. That it would be an obscure guard in Solzhenitsyn's forgotten gulag - reasonable.

But casts a "Manipulate Media" spell and only takes half-damage.

(CNN) — John McCain’s campaign blasted critics who questioned the senator’s account of an incident during his time as a prisoner of war Monday, citing an account from his former fellow POW Orson Swindle and blaming the controversy on “the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd.”
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/18/mccain-camp-slams-skeptics-of-his-saddleback-cross-story/

They've been doing so since time began. They're the Used Car Salesmen of religion. If you push this point, all you do is impugn one Jim and Tammy wanna-be trying to climb the ladder of fame and wealth. You do nothing significant against McCain.

On the other hand, McCain's POW experiences are the heart and soul of his campaign. Discounting them, showing them to be lies, removes the armor that protects him from the criticism he so richly deserves.

It comes down to what you want to do. Do you want to stop McCain? Or do you want to hurt a hymn-singing huckster? I say take down the target who can do real long-term damage to our country.