Cross Story A Wingnut Parable

So as I suspected, the Alexander Solzhenitsyn "cross in the dirt" story was apocryphal, and frequently told in Christian conservative circles. If you ask me, that makes it MORE likely that McCain just made it up. It's been in the wingnut ether for some time - apparently Chuck Colson was a prime mover on this thing:

Of course, it's still possible that McCain or Salter picked this up from the sort of right-wing circles that it first originated in. After all, this tale was bandied about by Chuck Colson and many other wingnuts for years; McCain or Salter could have picked it up from such circles, as the notes from Colson's 1983 book, Loving God, explain:

"The story about Alexander Solzhenitsen and the old man who made the sign of the cross was first told by Solzhenitsyn to a group of Christian leaders and later recounted by Billy Graham in his New Year's telecast, 1977. It has been retold subsequently, most publicly by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC)."

It's a short hop over to the McCain campaign in 2000, where this story first gets told by all accounts. At the time, while McCain was raging against "agents of intolerance" on the religious right he still was burnishing his war hero credentials, and as I've said the impulse to embellish your personal biography to reach an emotional connection with the electorate is powerful for politicians.

I still say it's B.S.