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A noun, a verb, and ‘prisoner of war’

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The initial response from the McCain campaign on the senator’s confusion about how many homes he owns was pretty weak. Put it this way, it talked about arugula and Hawaii.

A couple of hours later, though, the McCain gang went with the one response that applies to every question.

The McCain campaign is road-testing a new argument in responding to Obama’s criticism of his number-of-houses gaffe

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, an approach the McCain camp has never tried before: The houses gaffe doesn’t matter because … he was a P.O.W.!

“This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison,” spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.

I see. When the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a close Bush ally, publicly questioned McCain’s marital infidelities

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, the McCain campaign responded by highlighting McCain’s background as a prisoner of war.

When Dems attacked McCain’s healthcare plan in May, McCain responded by noting his background as a prisoner of war.

Asked by a local reporter about the first thing that comes to his mind when he thinks of Pittsburgh, McCain responded by talking about his background as a prisoner of war.

Accused of possibly having heard the questions in advance of Rick Warren’s recent candidate forum

, the McCain campaign responded by highlighting McCain’s background as a prisoner of war.

There seems to be a pattern here.

To be sure, McCain no doubt endured horrific conditions during the war, and it’s obvious that McCain’s detention as a young man in Vietnam helped shape his life. Given this, it’s not unreasonable that he’d want voters to know about his experience.

But that’s not a license to force the “P.O.W. card” into every unrelated question.

And all of this, of course, dovetails with the McCain campaign running multiple television ads talking about McCain’s background as a prisoner of war, literally including interrogation footage in the commercial.

This hard-sell wouldn’t be quite so odd if McCain didn’t go around saying that he’s reluctant to talk about his Vietnam experiences.

Comments

  • neilt

    says:

    Awesome! Look at what I *just* wrote on the last thread!

    11. On August 21st, 2008 at 2:27 pm, neilt said:
    So what are the odds on Hannity saying something along these lines tonight?

    “The looney left is making a big deal about nothing again…I can think of one home he had for five and a half years! FIVE AND A HALF YEARS COLMES!!!!

    FIVE!! AND!! A!! HALF!! YEARS!!!!!!!!!!

    (i’m thinking it’s even money at this point.

  • OkieFromMuskogee

    says:

    Would someone please explain to me why those 5 1/2 years count as relevant experience for a candidate for president? Sometimes Republican nonsense contains its own internal logic, but I don’t get this at all.

    For that matter, what does the experience of being a pilot have to do with being president?

    Let’s hope that the phrase “A noun, a verb, and ‘prisoner of war’” catches on. It did wonders for Giuliani.

  • MW

    says:

    But remember McCain doesn’t like to talk about his time as a POW!

    If that seems like a contradiction, it is because he was a POW, dammit!!!

  • Janet Knaus

    says:

    If republicans think a prison term is such great experience for leadership, why do they oppose giving voting rights back to felons once they are out of prison?

  • sven

    says:

    Just today NPR’s Talk of the Nation (yes, NPR) is doing a long-and-glowing personal interest event on John McCain. The introduction highlighted his time as a POW with the now ubiquitous line about how he hates to talk about his experiences….

  • Wayne

    says:

    So his campaign says that his 5-1/2 years is to blame. Sounds like an admission that those years has severely damaged his mind. I wonder if the mental experts will comment on this? I feel compassion for the man but I don’t want my country to have him as a leader.

  • Lew Scannon

    says:

    McCain was a prisoner of war over thirty years ago. If he can’t get over it, I suggest he’s not fit for command until he seeks some intensive professional health.

  • Stephen Stralka

    says:

    Gah! Still no link. Sorry. Basically it’s the old POW-MIA emblem doctored up to say “McCain 2008.” My Photoshop skills aren’t that great anyway.

  • Walt

    says:

    Yes, it’s funny how time melts away when his campaign talks about his POW experience, yet, when anyone discusses how he dumped wifey #1 for $indy McCain the response is “good gawd, that was 30 years ago……get over it. I’ve been happily married for 30 years…”

  • NonyNony

    says:

    Are they really trying to make the argument that McCain was so brain damaged by his experience as a POW that he can’t remember how many houses he owns?

    That’s about the only way you can blame this gaffe on his status as an ex-POW.

  • ROTFLMLiberalAO

    says:

    OkieFromMuskogee said:
    Would someone please explain to me why those 5 1/2 years count as relevant experience for a candidate for president?

    No one will explain this to you.
    Nor will anybody flip the idea on its head and explain the much more vital inverse querry:

    Would someone please explain to me why those 5 1/2 years count as dangerous experience for a candidate for president?

    Our culture isn’t going there. That is obvious isn’t it?
    Our culture is incapable of such logical reflection and introspection.

    Barack understands this.
    Just as Bill Clinton understood it in 1992.
    This election is going to be won by Barack at the right moment with the right sort of push.
    McCain and the right have no idea what awaits them…

  • maya

    says:

    So I would also imagine that the reason John McCain has missed just about every Veteran’s issue vote, when he isn’t voting against them, is because he was a POW for 5 1/2 years and they haven’t suffered as much as he has.
    That must be it!

  • citizen_pain

    says:

    I can see it now, at the RNC:

    9-11, POW..blah blah blah blah blah blah, 9-11, POW, blah blah blah blah… 9-11, POW, blah, blah, blah blah…9-11, POW……

  • Racer X

    says:

    Maybe the proper response would be something like this: “If John McCain was president in 1973 (the year he was released), the American prisoners might still be in Vietnam, because McCain says we shouldn’t have ever given up fighting that war.”

    We lost 50,000 people in Vietnam and McCain still thinks that we should have stayed. How many would be too many?

  • BuzzMon

    says:

    So with Julie-Annie (that’s his “in drag” name) at the GOP convention, will we see a spontanious Mille Light-like monemt?
    One side: pow
    the other: 9/11

    POW
    9/11

    POW!!
    9/11!!

    I think I’ll go get a beer….

  • zgirl

    says:

    CB, you missed my favorite – he also blames his taste in music on his war experience. I don’t remember where I read it, but when some reporter made fun of him for listing “Dancing Queen” as his favorite song, he replied that his taste in music went downhill after his plane crashed.

  • Wilco

    says:

    CNN had a special on McCain last night. When he was running for his first House seat, he was heavily criticized for being a carpetbagger. At a debate, this was brought up, how he just moved to Tempe. His response was that he was an army brat and had moved around a lot all his life, and that probably the placed he lived the longest was his five and a half years in Hanoi. Per CNN, all accusations of being a carpetbagger immediately ended.

    This M.O. goes a long ways back.

  • Eeyore

    says:

    The is is just another example of “Look, a shiny penny!” to deflect questions the Republicans don’t want to answer. Anytime of them screws up or flubs something, it’s either:

    McCain was a P.O.W.
    9-11
    Bill and Monica
    Jimmy Carter
    George McGovern
    Hippies
    Jane Fonda

    Unless, of course, it’s about looking backwards at the lying that got us into Iraq, or Katrina, or the Attorney Firings, or John McCain’s infidelity, or the Keating Five. Then it’s:

    That’s so OVER. All you want to is rehash old history. GET OVER IT.

  • Cervantes

    says:

    Suggested response to “5 1/2 years”: Does that include the time he spent making propaganda for the North Vietnamese?

  • short fuse

    says:

    Well, if he really does get to serve Bush’s 3rd term, it’ll be a handy excuse for all of the unnecessary wars, economic disaster, and the US finalizing its path to international pariah….

    “How dare you accuse me? I was a POW!”

  • Lance

    says:

    Wayne said: “So his campaign says that his 5-1/2 years is to blame. Sounds like an admission that those years has severely damaged his mind. I wonder if the mental experts will comment on this? I feel compassion for the man but I don’t want my country to have him as a leader.”

    Amen Brother!

  • celdem

    says:

    This POW stuff is really starting to wear thin. Remember Guiliani was a revered hero of 9/11 (wrongly so, as we found out). But he beat that drum so many times that he finally was exposed for what he was. He should have stayed out of the race and remained “America’s Mayor”. Now McCain’s drumbeat is getting just as tiresome. I’m seeing “a noun, a verb and ‘I was a POW'” all over the web. Gen. Wesley Clark was right when he mentioned that being a POW does not qualify one to be president. He was attacked unmercifully by the MSN, but he was right.

  • joey

    says:

    http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com. brings up many undiscussed points of McCain’s POW status. Why doesn’t he just wear his medals on his sleeve and get people to kiss them. It’s not disrespectful to say “what the hell has being a POW got to do with being president.”

    Why would anyone look at it as “experience” in running a war, or in knowing anything about national security or being commander in chief. Wouldn’t the fact that he graduated 894th out of 899 men in his Annapolis class be more relevant in terms of being president.

    This hot head threatens everybody and would threaten the world one country at a time putting America in embarrassing situations. He is already pushing us into a cold war with Russia along with the other neocons and their cheerleaders in the press and arms industry. How can his screwed up military service possibly be construed as a good thing…as experience to be commander in chief. His own military history all but guarantees he would screw up the presidency too.

  • Goldilocks

    says:

    We’re lucky to get the verb. When they reach:

    — HE POW —

    we’ll know all chance of substance has gone.

  • gg

    says:

    citizen pain wrote: “I can see it now, at the RNC:

    9-11, POW..blah blah blah blah blah blah, 9-11”

    I see it as a sort of Grease-style “Summer Nights” duet:

    Giuliani: 9-11, terrorists hit us
    McCain: POW, I’m not a wu-us
    Giuliani: 9-11, we should strike back
    McCain: I’m a POW, not a Republican flack

    Both: Security, we know everything, because… uh…um…let me think…

    Everyone: 9-11!POW!

  • Megalomania

    says:

    Anybody who has been in the military knows there is a mentality in a war zone of aggressiveness to go and kill at the expense of the risks involved. Especially with the Air Force, and attitude stricken fly boys like McCain. The odds are usually buried if things go sour. And you bet they did with McCain. Who know what and how many records where scrubbed.

    I like it when McCain says his dad was a high commander in the Military. Here, McCain is or was the son of the main man commander of all forces in the European theater. For me I would say there is a little bump in pull that one could use. And anyone and everyone associated with McCain in that prison camp likely had their nose up his ass. Come on, talking about kissing ass all the way out.

    America should be grateful to McCain’s patriotic and courageous action, but to just question how McCain did get shot down is not really begging the question, it is actually differentiating is McCain a hero, or just plain stupid. What of that time McCain happens to be the only plane that got shot down in months in the combat sorts that occurred in that zone? After hundreds of air strikes McCain is the only one who gets shot down. Absolutely doesn’t sound like good Judgement to me. More over with a mind like that that wanders into an air strike zone is not a very good pilot.

    So go figure, you think maybe we have a Captain Wrong way Peach Fuzz. For me all this commotion about off shore drilling places America oil resources way out on the outer shell. Sheesh, America we know simple terrorist have the courage to row up a huge naval ship to blow whole in it, why couldn’t they blow some oil platforms. Screw up America’s oil, and stock market. If anything, being just a simple guy in America to me it seem irrational to expose American resources so far off shore in the time of war.

  • charlotte

    says:

    Oh man! BuzzMon and gg already said what I was going to say. Bummer!

    Although that “Summer Nights” thing? Priceless. And ready for a YouTube video.

  • barkleyg

    says:

    I LOVE the noun, verb, pow

    so what do we call McSHAME now? McNVPOW? McNVP? where there is McSHAME, there is a NVP! If its the economy, there is a NVP!

  • Jeff

    says:

    If he cannot remember the number of homes he owns, he is not ready to lead, he is ready for the nursing home.

  • Glyph_2112

    says:

    It use to be that Military service was a big plus when running for office. Now its being a POW. I can’t wait for all the young republicans to go out and try and get taken as a POW so that they can do and say whatever they want and have an automatic excuse. oh wait, joining the military isn’t cool for today’s young republican chickenhawks.

    Gee, where’s Jessica Lynch now and why isn’t she running for some office? Probably won’t count unless it for more than 5 years.

  • Capt Kirk

    says:

    It is absolutely outrageous that John McCain, former POW, would be accused of (fill in the blank). Absolutely outrageous!!! Don’t you know the man is a former POW?!!!!

  • thorin-1

    says:

    Capt Kirk –

    You forgot to add –

    “And lets not forget John McCain does not like to talk about his time as a POW.”

  • mikeyes

    says:

    A noun, a verb, and POW is a pretty good argument for almost every question being asked if you take into account the audience being addressed. Most voters don’t care about the issues unless they are being immediately affected by them. This includes Iraq (just about over according to the news), the price of gas/oil (lets drill some more), and a host of other issues and quasi-issues that are being batted back and forth in the blogs.
    The issue of being a POW is an issue of character. He was a POW, he did not go home when a sweetheart deal was offered. Many people, including me, thought very highly of this action. Everything after his POW experience pales in light of the time spent in prison.
    So just throw an argument at me: recent GI bill? “I didn’t vote against it” and N,V, POW. “Keating Five?” Bad Choice my friends, N,V,POW. “First Wife?” My fault and I am sorry it happened, N,V,POW.
    And on and on. The vast majority of voters practice rational ignorance. In other words they don’t want to know about the facts or the controversies, they want to vote for the person who shows the kind of character they want in the White House. N, V, POW says it all, a man who will stand up for what he believes in.
    Now, the facts that he is a panderer, possibly senile, willing to do anything to be president, and not all that smart are irrelevant no matter how snarky or how correct you might be on this blog. Senator McCain has that Jacksonian persona that is beloved by many and voters are willing to overlook the faults in order to get the war hero in the White House. If Senator Obama is to win, he will have to overcome this perception and so far he is not doing it.sed.

  • libra

    says:

    Goldilocks, @36,

    They’ll never get to that stage, since “surge” can be used as both a noun and a verb.
    POW surge 9/11

  • Texas Aggie

    says:

    You’ve got to wonder if being a POW under harsh conditions makes you eligible to be president, are the people who have gone through Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram AF base, and all the other way stops in the American Gulag also somehow eligible to be leaders of something? These people have suffered as much if not more than McFlipFlop ever did.

  • Capt Kirk

    says:

    Yeah, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and the rest are just places where we train future presidents for the middle east. It’s part of spreading democracy.

  • MizLiz

    says:

    Oh, thank you. At last. I’ve been wondering when the MSM media was going to pick this up and run with it. (Are you guys at Carpetbagger MSM? Am I jumping the gun?)

    I waited in vain for the MSM to lay out in detail Bush’s phony “war” record and his AWOL from hall-monitor duty, not to mention his hurried dropout from flying to avoid the mandatory drug test. Oh wait, Dan Rather tried that, and look what happened to him.

  • Evo

    says:

    I was going to make a joke that I’ll tell my wife “Sorry for cheating on you honey but, remember, I was a P.O.W.” Then I remember… shit, McCain already beat me to it.