The POW Card

This really is quite amazing. I didn't imagine that every response, every excuse by the McCain campaign would be tied to his POW service, all the while keeping up the fiction that he's reluctant to talk about it. But that's exactly what's happened, to an embarrassing degree.

Speaking to the Washington Post, aide Brian Rogers, in full damage-control mode, acknowledged that his boss had "some investment properties and stuff," but added: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison."

That the McCain campaign could incorporate his service in Vietnam into a campaign spat over his property portfolio is not so surprising. The Senator has, rightfully or not, used his history as a POW shrewdly and repeatedly throughout this campaign. Earlier this week, for instance, amidst speculation that the Senator may have received in advance the questions to a values forum between him and Obama, spokeswoman Nicole Wallace declared: "The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous."

When Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Senator John Edwards, ridiculed McCain's health care policy, his aides didn't respond with a substantive retort. Rather, they declared that their boss knew what it was like to get inadequate care "from another government." Even earlier, when the topic was about earmarks, McCain criticized Sen. Hillary Clinton for proposing funds for a museum celebrating Woodstock. He didn't know what there was to celebrate, he said, because he was "tied up" during the music festival.

The Senator has even brought his military record into discussion of his music tastes. Explaining that his favorite song was "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, he offered that his knowledge of music "stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile." Dancing Queen, however, was produced in 1975, eight years after McCain's plane was shot down.

There are a dozen more of these. And it's actually offensive at this point. Brandon Friedman at VoteVets has had enough.

1. Being a POW is not an excuse for everything.

The bottom line is that we're sick of hearing about this as a justification for everything John McCain does or doesn't do. This instance is only the latest example, as others have noted.

The fact is, John McCain's service during Vietnam was honorable and he sacrificed a great deal. But his service to the country carries no more weight than that of any other POW. Likewise, while McCain has given so much to his country, thousands of veterans--past and present--have given as much or more. In this war alone, thousands of troops have lost limbs, been paralyzed, and been burned beyond recognition. So to see McCain resort to playing the POW card when answering legitimate questions, in my mind, cheapens that experience. And by cheapening his own experience in war, he degrades all of our experiences in war. He turns the horrific incidents we've all seen, touched, smelled, and felt into a lame excuse to earn political points. And it dishonors us all [...]

But there's also another issue here:

2. Thousands of veterans are homeless--that is, they have ZERO homes.

John McCain seems to forget that while he and his wife own at least eight houses, there are currently over 150,000 homeless vets on America's streets. The only "houses" they own are cardboard boxes under a bridge. Many of these vets served alongside John McCain in Vietnam. Some might have even been POWs. Either way, thousands of them have suffered immeasurably overseas, in the service of their country.

It's really crazy and it's reaching the level of out-and-out parody. Every time anything happens to McCain, troll liberal blog comments and you'll get half a dozen "but he was a POW!" If that acerbic stance goes mainstream, forget it. McCain is shot. I can't believe he's still trying this.

But it's just like a loudmouth pundit to have absolutely no self-awareness.

...I guess some in the media are defending McCain on this, and that's no surprise: he's one of them.

Why do the media idiots love him? Because he’s one of them.

Why do they give him a pass on his totally fraudulent references to elitism? Because they do that shit all the time.

Why do they love his insanity-based foreign policy? Because he says all the absurd, superficially strong-sounding stuff that makes good TV.

They love him like Chris Matthews loved Tim Russert. They love him like David Brooks loves Tom Friedman loves Richard Cohen loves Fred Hiatt. They love him like the Slate editorial board loves any idiot with a contrary position. They would go to bat for him because it’s tribal, because they get him, on a fundamental level. He’s good TV people. He’s one of them.

Keep defending him, guys. And make sure you repeat the quote when you do it. Because you don't actually have a whole lot of credibility anyway, and as long as you mention clearly that John McCain doesn't know how many houses he has, people will get the message.