Forget about Cone-gate, Cross-gate is a much bigger deal.

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In McCain's version of the story, a guard who had befriended him later drew the cross in the ground.

According to McCain's 1973 retelling of his experience, there was only one guard who he considered human, and that guard befriended him in 1969. (kos diarist Calouste made this connection, which extends into the next two points.)

This means that McCain's Christmas story would have taken place in 1969.

Between when he met that guard and Christmas of 1969, McCain changed prisons. Unless the guard followed him to the new prison, McCain's story is not true.

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In McCain's early stories about his POW years, he made no mention of the story.

At a 1974 prayer breakfast arranged by Ronald Reagan, McCain did not tell the Solzhenitsyn story. He told a completely different one about a prisoner scratching a prayer into a wall. It is unimaginable that he would not have told the "Cross in the Dirt" story if it were true. (kos diarist TomP linked to another version of the prayer breakfast story, but the link was a dead link.)

There is no evidence McCain ever told this story before 1999.

McCain's story has shifted subtly over the years since he first told it in 1999.
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