If McCain exploits his POW record, and the media doesn’t notice, does it make a sound?

June 27, 2008

In his first presidential campaign, eight years ago, John McCain went out of his way to avoid talking about his military background. Four years ago, when John Kerry campaigned in part on his military service, McCain criticized him for it, saying he was “sick and tired of re-fighting the Vietnam War.” McCain even disparaged Kerry personally, saying his emphasis on his military record is “clearly a tactical or strategic move.”

The problem, though, is that political observers seem to remember 2000 McCain and 2004 McCain, and assume he’s the same guy.

McCain, who rarely discusses what is perhaps the most compelling element of his biography, used the new language twice on Tuesday to bring up his refusal to take early release in Vietnam.

“When I was offered a chance to go home early from prison camp in Vietnam, I put my country first,” McCain said on a conference call Tuesday night with independent and Democratic voters in South Florida. “And I’ve been doing that ever since.” He said much the same later that night at a fundraiser in Newport Beach, Calif.

Karl Rove recently made a related observation, saying McCain “is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history,” and it’s “troubling” the extent to which McCain is reluctant to talk about his military service.

I haven’t the foggiest idea which presidential race these guys are watching. McCain “rarely discusses” his military background? Since when?

As Brendan Nyhan put it, “John McCain is a genuine war hero, but how many times can he and his political campaigns exploit that experience before the press stops claiming that he doesn’t exploit it?”

Good question. The point isn’t that McCain’s military service should somehow be kept under wraps — if McCain wants to highlight his Vietnam record, that’s entirely up to him. The point is the media seems to treat each of these references as some kind of rarity. I can’t help but think they’re just not paying attention. As Atrios explained, “McCain does talk about his POW experience all the time. And mentions it in his ads!”

Let’s flesh this out a bit. First, McCain routinely exploits his service record as some kind of political “trump card.”

Whether he’s deflecting criticism over his health-care plan or mocking a tribute to the Woodstock music festival, Senator John McCain has a trump card: the Hanoi Hilton.

That’s the nickname for the site where he spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, a past that McCain regularly recalls on the campaign trail to fend off policy attacks, score political points and give voters a glimpse of his sentimental side. He campaigns with squadrons of POWs and made a video to mark the 35th anniversary of his release from prison.

When Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Senator John Edwards, rebuked McCain’s medical-care proposal and noted that he’d always enjoyed government health benefits, McCain responded that he knows what it’s like to get inadequate care — “from another government.” During an October debate, while knocking a Hillary Clinton plan to help fund a museum celebrating Woodstock, McCain said he missed the 1969 festival because he was “tied up at the time.” Even his rivals applauded.

And second, there are the ads. It started in September, with one of the first McCain TV ads of the season, featuring a young McCain being interviewed in a Hanoi prison.

Interviewer: How old are you?

John McCain: Thirty one.

Interviewer: What is your rank in the army?

McCain: Lt. Commander in the Navy. … hit by either missile or anti-aircraft fire, I’m not sure which. And the plane continued straight down and I ejected and broke my leg and both arms.

Interviewer: And your official number?

McCain: 624787

The viewer hears the announcer say, “One man sacrificed for his country.”

It led to another ad based on McCain’s favorite scripted debate sound-bite: “I was, I was tied up at the time.”

In mid-December, McCain completely gave up on subtlety: “One night, after being mistreated as a POW, a guard loosened the ropes binding me, easing my pain. On Christmas, that same guard approached me, and without saying a word, he drew a cross in the sand. We stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas.”

In March, the McCain campaign released its first national ad — one-fourth of which was interrogation footage taken while McCain was a prisoner of war.

And then earlier this month, in his first general-election ad, McCain tells us, “I was shot down over Vietnam and spent five years as a POW. Some of the friends I served with never came home.”

Again, if McCain wants to exploit this, more power to him. But if the media could just pay a little attention to what the McCain campaign is actually doing, the coverage would be less annoying.

June 27, 2008 at 10:52 am

Sometimes the problem with experience is that it begs the question, “What did you learn from it?” In fact, I would love it if someone would ask this: “If you could go back to 1969 in a time machine, knowing what you know today, what advice would you give Nixon about Viet Nam?”

In his first presidential campaign, eight years ago, John McCain went out of way to avoid talking about his military background.

Not true. That’s what the media kept telling us. But like so much of what they told us then and tell us now about the 1999-2000 campaign simply isn’t true. E.g. it’s often stated that McCain didn’t use his military experience in ads in that primary, but in fac he did. Check out Somerby‘s archives for details.

The media wants a horse race, and unless they help McCain it won’t get one.

We will need to work extra hard, because the media will do what it can to make this an even race, there are millions of dollars at stake.

BTW, somewhat off topic, but somewhat on-topic:

Even if they do not understand the neuroscience behind source amnesia, campaign strategists can exploit it to spread misinformation. They know that if their message is initially memorable, its impression will persist long after it is debunked. In repeating a falsehood, someone may back it up with an opening line like “I think I read somewhere” or even with a reference to a specific source.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27aamodt.html?em&ex=1214712000&en=07a0cd373fc51d40&ei=5087

“If you could go back to 1969 in a time machine, knowing what you know today, what advice would you give Nixon about Viet Nam?”

McCain: Stay the course! Terrorists! Gas tax holiday! Terrorists! 9/11! Terrorists! Support our troops! Elitists=Terrorists! Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran! If you vote for Obama, the terrorists win!

McCain seems to have learned the same thing from VietNam that he has from Iraq.

Nothing.

RacerX (3): the media will do what it can to make this an even race.

Do you think that would be the case if McCain were leading by 15 in the polls? I don’t. In fact, I think I read somewhere that Wolf Blitzer, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and McCain get together on Saturdays, when none of them work, and discuss strategy.

It’s slightly OT, but I am getting tired of the constant misuse of the term, ‘hero.’ (I recall a story of a policeman who was merely sitting in his car waiting for his partner, got shot and killed, and was called a ‘hero.’)

A hero is, as most people use the term:

Someone who chooses to take an action

That puts himself in danger of serious personal danger

For the sake of someone else.

(It is valid to argue that anyone who joins the Police or Fire Department is doing something heroic — and volunteering for service at a time of war may qualify as heroic as well — but the mere act of getting yourself killed, captured, or shot, unless it is a result of a choice of action when another choice was available, doesn’t make you any more of a hero.)

There are, certainly, elements of heroism in McCain’s story — his survival under torture, his refusing early release — and we shouldn’t denigrate them. But his getting captured simply isn’t one of them.

(And in fact, choosing to devote your life to community action when you could have, instead, chosen a starting salary at a Wall Street firm that would have surpassed what the President received — as was likely for a ‘1st in class, President of the Law Review’ student at the time — may not include an element of physical danger, but it is heroic by the above definition.)

I’ve said it once or twice and I’ll say it again: McAce is running for Prisoner of War of the United States. Let’s get Wesley Clark back on TV. He’s about the only one that has been able to shut-up the pundits on this “I am the better choice for security” bullshit McAce and his surrogates spew. He has done nothing to warrant this moniker other than be a P.O.W. How does that qualify anyone for being knowledgeable about National security? His best chance to take the high ground on torture was added to his elongated list of flip-flops. That question should be asked over and over again to him…

But his getting captured simply isn’t one of them. -Prup

That is correct, sir. Any moron can be captured, and McCain is proof of that.

The use of the word ‘media’ in this country is wrong .. the word should be ‘mafia’ .. a corporate mafia that produces lies, propaganda, and ‘narratives’ all to benefit themselves .. so they of course ‘hire’ soul less buffoons who them mouth what they are hired to mouth .. do what they are hired to do .. so we end up with corporate pimps like Williams, Gibson, the corporate nazi called Blizter, Couric, the entire evil phenomena called Fox News whose channel numbers everywhere should be 666, the spluttering corporate hemmorid called Matthews, etc, etc, etc all being paid millions of dollars so that creeps like David Gregory can end up dancing on stage with pig fuck Rove, all the while are once great country becomes nothing more than a fascist state .. and the teachers of our kids, for god’s sake, make what ? about $30,000 a year ? meanwhile the corporate ken doll Williams sits there reading what he is told to read and makes 15 million a year … and all the corporate ‘journalists’ enjoy their barbeque with McBush in his ‘rustic’ cabin , and buy him donuts with sprinkles on them .. standing ovation by the ASSOCIATED PROPAGANDISTS as he enters the room to answer questions, stone silence when Obama does. This once great country of ours has become nothing more that a corporate whore … a corporate mafia ..

I’m really starting to care less and less for this John Sidney McCan’t character.

What we can determine is that he has been wrong,
is wrong,
and will be wrong,

about everything.

A couple of years ago, I visited Hanoi with my son. I booked two rooms at the “Hanoi Opera Hilton”, a very good hotel in central Hanoi. The hotel was routinely called the “Hanoi Hilton” on all stationery and signage.

The day we checked out after a lovely stay of three nights, I was talking to the young manager of the hotel, a Swiss man. I asked him if they ever got any comments about the hotel being referred to as the “Hanoi Hilton”.

“No”, he said,”why should we?”

I figured I didn’t have enough time before my departure to the airport to fill him in on history.

I keep hearing how brave McCain was to deny the Vietnamese a propaganda victory by refusing to allow them to send him home. The absurdity of the idea that he was the one to choose whether the Vietnamese could send him home or not is so obvious why isn’t it ever pointed out when this is brought up.

I’ve always felt one of the reasons that McCain doesn’t play his military experience more widely, to an extent, is that he wants to keep everything focused on what happened after he got shot down. He probably doesn’t want to call attention, too much, to the nine years that preceded that. The jet he got shot down in was the fifth he lost. In at least one incident, in Spain, he was clearly hotdogging when he flew into some high tension wires and wrecked a jet that he was flying way too low according to regulations. Another jet was lost on the way to Philadelphia for the Army Navy game, and he crashed one of his trainers on a bad landing during training. Then there was the Forrestal disaster just a few months before he was shot down. Something like 130 sailers killed and McCain was one of two pilots at the center of it all. An investigation cleared the admiral’s son of any culpability, but, given what the Swift Boaters did with Kerry’s record, does McCain really want to go there?

All in all, what is publically available concerning his early years in the Navy is not too encouraging, concerning what it says about his fitness to lead. While it is true that he is not above mentioning his POW days for fun and profit on the campaign trail, he usually keeps it low-key, probably because to play the service card the way that Kerry did would be to invite closer scrutiny of his overall record. And that would put him in a league with Gary Hart challenging the news media to dig up something on his marital infidelities. A smart man doesn’t want to go there.

“…it’s “troubling” the extent to which McCain is reluctant to talk about his military service.”

Well, of course he’s reluctant. Why would he want anybody looking around and googling “John McCain + USS Forrestal” and discovering he did more damage to the US Navy in 10 minutes than the North Vietnamese did in 10 years? He wouldn’t want anyone finding out how his little “joke” killed 137 of his fellow sailors, including the two fellow Naval Aviators trapped in the F-4 immediately behind him, how there were 450 injured, and he managed to put an entire aircraft carrier out of service for two years at the height of the war with his moron stupidity, would he? Of course he wouldn’t want anyone knowing that he became a “heroic POW” because he was too goddamned stupid to know you don’t turn around and go back over the place you just bombed at low speed and low altitude, that getting his ass shot down was the best career move he ever made other than marrying Cindy, since it put him in the POW fast track for promotion, so he got the promotion to Commander he never would have as a result of his fun and games on the Forrestal, rather than being tossed from the Navy as the failure he was (and is) at the end of the Oriskany cruise.

It constantly amazes me how this gets left sitting there, with proof of his incompetence and dereliction of duty. This is swiftboating with the truth!

Cleaver is so right. McCain continues to milk his situation as POW which is unfortunate but to many of us this is not an American hero only a Pentagon hero as most of the nation didn’t want us there in the first place.

He got captured and endured torture which is horrible but it was a no choice situation and the US has been compensating him ever since but this has nothing to do with being our president.

The incident Cleaver mentions above goes far in describing the real nature of McCain yet is never mentioned, much like Bush’s AWOL status. Had he not had the relatives he had he would have been drummed out of the service. It’s not asshole to hero…it’s asshole…to stupid asshole who got captured and was forced to endure torture for which we claim him a hero. The real heroes of Nam fought to save their buddies’ lives.

YOu guys rewriting history again.. seems like your accounts of McCains incident on the Forrestal is a little misgiven.. where can you find anything faulting him except in your own minds. and hatred. Of course thats what you guys do the best is rewrite history….
Bubba said that

all any of you doubting thomas’s have to do when your sitting here spouting off rubbish is just move your little cursor up to the top to your search box [if your fat little fingers can move that far] and type in mcain service record. or mc cain pow and low and behold you get more than 560,000 hits.

isn’t that amazingly simple.

let me tell you in advance you blowhearts that are not very nice or friendly. but show what a trurd the man really is.

You seem to assume that it is somehow nefarious for a candidate to promote his own record, as if he were trying to get some unseemly gain from it. Well, of course McCain is running on his record, and it’s ridiculous to suggest that he shouldn’t. Why should he be faulted for pointing out that he’s a man of proven courage, selflessness and patriotism? Isn’t that a perfectly valid thing for voters to consider?

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