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Texpat

I hear it a lot, but not from him. Seems everyone else wants to talk about it. He doesn't.

britmaveric

Unfortunately Kerry fabricated his combat experience that was the issue. He brought a typewriter with him in the field to start typing his own memoirs.

jandajoy

Isn't that what aides and assistants are for. He talks and it's bragging. They talk and it can be covered if false.

Jet Gorgon

Unable to verify, so what to believe? If he sang, he only did it when he first got in and in his condition who knows; how could he get info if he's stuck in a cell?
I wonder if McCain's ex-prison guard knows Jane Fonda?

Norton

Never a peep from the old boy to use it to political advantage.


"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."

"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.''

"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.''

"At a candidates' forum, he dismissed accusations that he was a carpetbagger with a well-timed ad lib: ``The place I lived the longest in my life was Hanoi.''

" Under fire as a senator for questionable dealings with an Arizona friend and supporter during the savings-and-loan scandal, McCain fumed: ``Even the Vietnamese didn't question my ethics.''

"in a response to questions from reporters about accusations from Democrats that he's changed his positions on Cuba over the years. ``My record is unchanged and consistent for 24 years,'' McCain said. ``A Cuban officer and enlisted men came to Hanoi and tortured my friends -- killed one of them. My position on Cuba has been exactly the same.''

"This time around, McCain and his strategists aren't holding back either. They've created posters and aired television advertisements showing him as prisoner, lying on his back, holding a cigarette."

Bloomberg.com: News

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Norton

The limp and gimpy arm are no hoax. He broke his right arm in 3 places, broke his left arm, and leg. All done when he bailed out of his plane!

Bugs

In all honesty I have not looked much into McCain's time at the Hanoi Hilton. IMHO the fact that he was there for as long as he was is enough in and of itself.

But how do we know all these broken bones occured when he bailed out? - (maybe these breaks being the result of the jump is well documented but like I said I have not delved much into this topic) With injuries this extensive even McCain himself would be a poor judge of how and when they occured (if they all happened over a relative short period of time). And even if they did all come about as a result of the jump I doubt things were all wine and roses while he was being held captive. If someone wants to torture another person and minimize the chances of leaving proof of the torture newly broken bones would supply a ready made supply of pressure points that could easily be manipulated to give plenty of agony to the captive.

And from what I have seen/ read of the vetrans against McCain web pages some of those lads are so far right that Limbauch would be considered a liberal. One man of the guys (I think from the Veterans Against McCain site) threw a wine glass at the prime minister of Vietnam a few years ago. As I recall many of the same guys are behind the McCain sites are were behind the Kerry sites. These blokes seem to have a hard-on for McCain because McCain has been willing to put the Vietnam War behind hima and work towards normalizing relationships with communist countries like Vietnam and China.

That being said I don't really think his time there or to what extent he was (or was not) tortured really has much of an impact on if I will vote for the man come November or not.

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jandajoy

Surely it's the lying and his credibility that count. If he has lied about his experiences (and I've no doubt they were terrible) and tried to get a political edge from them it's an absolute insult to those that were there.
IMHO if that's what he's done it's got to be some of the worst type of lying, fabrication or evasion of truth.

A few years ago I was in a pub in the UK and a guy started banging on about his time in Northern Ireland. The table went quiet and we let him blather on. He dug a hole for himself and was later admitted to hospital. He'd lied through his teeth. The guys at the table had been there and lost mates there too.

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Norton

No question he was there a long time and I in no way am suggesting he didn't suffer as a result. I am also sure, he didn't get exactly 4 star medical treatment for the injuries he received in the crash and as a result he sustained further complications. As I stated in an earlier post, no one is sure what treatment he received as a POW.

As you appropriately point out, being an ex POW does not make anyone more or less qualified to hold the office of the President. Using it as a campaign tool is simply playing to the sympathetic and "neo patriot" elements within the electorate. I felt the same way when Kerry did it.