Jason Horowitz wants to know who John McCain really is. That’s easy. I answered it here in the most vicious article I have ever written. I don’t know what moved me to write it, and I suspected at the time that I might live to deeply regret writing it. As it turns out, I have absolutely no regrets. If anything, I went way too easy on that man.
A mere eight days later, McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. To say that my opinion of McCain deteriorated further at that point would be an understatement bigger that the Solar System.
Build the Dang Fence.
John who?
POW.
POS.
But not POTUS.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA
I remember reading that article. It struck me because I had been puzzled by that monument in Hanoi several years before, and had no idea what it was about until reading about it here.
I think you took it easy on McCain.
Mr McCain was a Lt. Cdr when he was shot down. I have read other places that he lost 5 naval aircraft, not including the one on the Forrestal.
Maybe he got through the Academy because his dad (who I met) and his granddad were 4-star admirals.
I regarded him somewhat positively, until he caved in the 2000 primary season. Now I regard him as a grumpy, mean old man.
My father was a POW in WWII. (Unlike many men from wars, my father did talk about those experiences and as he learned to be Human during those years. The stories remain potent parables for us.)
Years ago, we watched a documentary on PBS with interviews from Viet Nam POWs. He could read from their expressions the underlying feelings of the men and read the signs of comradeship of the imprisoned soldiers. Discussing the film afterwards my father bluntly said: “McCain was not liked by his fellow prisoners. He wasn’t caring or trustworthy in the group…and not because he was injured.”
My father’s stories of prison camp centered around this understanding: Prisons (of any kind) make you more or less Human by heightening empathy or defying empathy. My father watched many men rise to great levels of Human empathy that guided their future lives. But some other men simply developed a pronounced self-important “user and taker” mentality out of the experience.
I seem to be the only one who shocked that the campaign made a treacly love-story film to show at the convention about how McCain met and fell in love with his second wife.
When they talked about seeing each other at the officer’s club party, I asked the screen, “Was he wearing his wedding ring?”
Who?
POW.
POS.
Re-reading that old piece about McCain made me wasn’t to live again. Politically speaking, of course.