Beliefnet Editor-In-Chief Says McCain is Finished if He Plagiarized the Cross-in-the-Dirt Story

If the peeps never hear about it, it is like a tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it....NO BOOM!!!

One thing I am constantly amazed at is how fast news on the internet emerges before the MSM. So if people keep pushing this story, then sooner or later, it will have a good chance of getting out. Two things I have noticed about the MSM is that, it's slower and doesn't like to source off the internet on many stories. I think the MSM thinks it is beneath them to do so.

If it makes to Drudge, then it's in the MSM.

Which leads one to inevitably believe that the MSM isn't interested in anything of the sort.

along with the "cone of silence" controversy:

snip


"The blogosphere is also lighting up with questions about the story Mr. McCain told at the forum — and many times previously — about a moment when a guard in his prison camp in Hanoi etched a cross in the dirt in front of him on a Christmas day. Mr. McCain related the story movingly at the forum, almost choking up, and added a line that he had not used before publicly: “For a minute there, there was just two Christians, worshiping together.

But some in the blogosphere are noting that this scene is strikingly similar to one painted by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writing about his days in the gulag, and are questioning whether it actually happened to Mr. McCain. Mark Nicholas, a Democrat from Montana, has this. And over at the liberal DailyKos, they are noting that conservatives at Free Republic first raised doubts about the story in 2005."

end of snip

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

You can find the posted paragraphs at the bottom of the article.

If there is documentation of the original story and we provide it, ?? I say send snopes the info as well. Start an email campaign?

I work for Beliefnet and we can do the story if the suspicians turn out to be true.

When I had my old comcast email, I started to get spam from beliefnet even though I did not request it. No matter what I do, the opt out function did not work. Now, I am a known anti-spam advocate, and its clear to me that your methods of mass mail does not work (trust me, I used to work for one), and I just decided to make a rule and junked it. Time to fix it.

That comcast email has already been discarded for the last 7 weeks, so just giving you a friendly advice.

There's a fuck-up with our mailing list. It should be easily fixable but , for reasons I can't divulge (NDAs, you know how it goes), it hasn't been.

That story has about a one day shelf life at best.

"What does being a Christian mean to you?"

If this turns out to be bullshit he's DONE, just DONE. The fundies will not forgive or forget.

Bush, McCain, Romney or whoever the R canidate is could bring a camel on stage and commence procreative behavior and the Rs will vote for them ...

ALL our eyes saw Saddleback, and we saw a good, decent and honest practicing christian and one who could not even put on a real effort to fake it - and they mindlessly dismissed the christian and offered their verbous support for the guy who fed them their POLITICAL red meat ...

I will be STUNNED if the media goes with this, and if they do to any extent, it won't budge even the FIRST fundie ...

It is not, it never has been about "religion" ... It is, and always has been about a pathological brand of politics ...\

The bigger the scumbag, Bush, Santorum, Frist ... The more they love them ...

We sure can't depend on the mas to do it and a lot of people don't care about blogsites. So we have to keep the pressure on the media outlets to report this story. And just report it, without any commentary.

"he's lied about his "cross in the dirt" story, what else has he lied about?
He said his greatest moral failure was the failure of his first marriage, why is that?

John McCain, what is he not telling you
Or
John McCain, he'll lie about anything if it's good for him"


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quote some right-wing republican)

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/berni_mccoy/431

Read how the Freepers even challenge the Solzhenitsyn point!

Edwards' reputation was crushed long before the MSM finally picked up the Reille Hunter story. The internet spreads stories like this very quickly, and it's fast moving into the general public. I think, added to the general consensus that he cheated during the forum, it's going to be very damaging.

His standing was always suspicious because of his adultery.


This will be discussed and talked about a great deal.


Much worse than having a crazy pastor.

and he never related this story in any of his writings or discussion on the experience

It's not like there is video of the tarmac, so to speak. As it is it makes a nice blog subject and whisper campaign, but I don't see how you could ever pin it down sufficiently for the Obama Campaign to really run with it.

Someone needs to get their hands on a copy of the Gulag Archipelago.

I did find this:

http://incommunion.org/articles/previous-issues/older-issues/the-sign-of-the-cross

The problem is, in my opinion, is that without any way to prove it, McCain's response is simply to say "You weren't there, I was, for 5 long years being tortured blah blah blah" Do you really want the campaign to take that head on?

and CAN ask the question, bring up the points related to why there is a legitimate question to be asked.

The campaign doesn't have to say anything about it. It's spreading like wildfire and that's good enough.

As I said up thread, it is great fodder for a whisper campaign.

He's been lifting stuff this entire campaign....

Democrats still lag in the finer art of aggressive negative politicking.

It seems abundantly obvious that Grumpy Grampy McShits pulled this out of his ass vis Solzhenitsyn. I honestly think that the man is in a stage of mental confusion to the point where he doesn't know what's true and what's false anymore. Like Reagan, if he believes something is true, it's true, whether it can be proved false or not. But if it can be proven false, the electorate may have a different opinion.

This could be the gift that keeps on giving for the entire campaign.

Take a look ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3817529

He makes fun of stuff he supported.

He has been on recess from congress for a year.

plagiarized the story (considering Cindy's home baked goodies, and McCain getting his Georgian foreign policy information from a Wickipedia entry that probably was done by a 9th grader for a social studies class, he hasn't had a good week as far as the plagiarism thing goes), there is one way that it might not have been plagiarized. Don't get me wrong, it is probably utter bullshit, but it is actually cliched bullshit and is part of a trope in a lot of religious literature.

Initially, someone said it came from Ben Hur. Very Good catch. The scene they were thinking of was when Judah Ben Hur is being dragged off to the galleys and is being beaten and falls down. He is thirsty and, guess who comes out of nowhere, stares down the centurion and gives him water - J.C. And Ben Hur is able to keep going. It is also a variant on the "Footsteps in the Sand" poem. When all is lost Christ - or someone who is Christian, or some kindly stranger out of left field ( in this case a communist guard) - gives some poor zhlubb ( in this case John McCain) the faith and community and the inspiration to continue - sometimes actually carries him along. It is to right-wing fundies what "I'm Spartacus, No, I'm Spartacus" is to us (one of my favorite films - Rocky for lefties).

So, my take is that it never happened ( I can't believe I wrote that - I want to say that the probability is that he is just lying his ass off, but in the interests of fairness I can't). It is probably from Solzhenitsyn, but, more to the point, it is a common trope and a basic cliche of fundy story telling. Hell, we can find it somewhere.

really just McCain talking in third person about himself. It's perfectly obvious from that NYT story

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904EFDE1239F93AA15751C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

and Jake Tapper mentioned that McCain was speaking in third person when he quoted the speech in a blog last month:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/mccains-new-wil.html


Whatever "proof" there might be that McCain's story isn't true, misreading a speech where he's talking about himself in third person -- and suggesting he's talking about "someone else" -- isn't it.

original speech,I have to say thanks. It really does put his use of the incident - that is, that he is referring to himself - in a clear context. (What is frustrating to me is that it is such patent bullshit, only pops up late in his political life when he is courting fundamentalists, and is such a clear stock story geared specifically to that group).

He could have made it work by merely referencing Solzhenitsyn. "When I read the works of Solzhenitsyn, was AMAZED to find a story so similar to mine.......yadayadayadayada" There would be no criticism possible then, whether it was true or not.

That is the real story. The other is a red herring.

both controversies can be pursued and should be, imo.

How would you feel?

Why do you think your way is the only way?

Are you that much of an elitist?

(I just submitted this story to digg and there are at least 6 other stories on it (not this one, so I did submit). They are on the top page of all stories as well.)

soooo, msm or ministry of propaganda, y'all figuring out what we the people want to hear about yet? or are you gonna stay stuck in the tee vee of the last century?

we heah ahhh on-line, readin up on the news like literate folks. check it out! it's called re-portin'.

y'all have a nice day now, y'heah?

And that's not going to sit well with real Christians, if word gets out. That's why I'm starting to believe that Cone-of-Silence-Gate may be a distraction from this story; most people aren't going to care if he heard the questions Obama was asked. What real advantage would that have given him? He wouldn't have had time to come up (and rehearse) his responses. I have no doubt his handlers knew what to expect and fed him his answers long before he pulled into the Saddleback parking lot.

But he's been "embellishing" some of his anecdotes now to pander to the religious right. Those people are going to vote for him no matter what. But the moderate, more independent Christians will see through this and he will lose their support. Or so I hope.

asked about two things. One was the "cone of silence" controversy and the other was about McCain's possible plagiarism. Rush went into a tirade about people thinking McCain cheated and how Obama was the one who really had the advantage because he knew of a different question ahead of time. But guess what? He didn't touch the caller's question about "Cross in the sand". So yeah, I think some on the right are really scared of it and would rather talk about "cone of silence". I only listen to Rush sometimes while on lunch break (all conservative talk radio here in Birmingham, Al.), so I don't know if he ever got back to the question. He went to another caller that was conservative talking about something different. I was just amazed that he acted like the caller didn't even bring it up.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Sorry you're stuck with conservative radio; I'm in Seattle, and used to listen sometimes before we got Air America. My blood pressure is much lower now.

leave one finished politically. But I agree this is a story well worth pursuing.

dismantle the federal government sporadically over seven years and not be finished. The American public don't care. They're trying to fill up that SUV that they should have dumped two years ago. The media doesn't care. They're part of of the problem. McCain's just getting started.