Cross Drawn in the Dirt - Gate

Two things come to my mind. One, it is not unusual for a prisoner to find at least one camp guard who treats him/her a bit better than other guards do. So this can have happened to Solzhenitsen as well as McCain. I am sure there are many such stories we shall never hear. Two, it is not unsuual for someone to speak of their own experiences as those of someone else. One is a simple matter of privacy and another is to spare onesself the ohhing and ahhing that may follow. One thing we all need to be careful of when we "investigate" is to remember that even presidential candidates are human.
I am an Obama supporter.
Let us not decide elections on issues such as this one.
Katharine

No, the person who is "verifying" the story is Orson Swindle, someone who is CAMPAIGNING for McCain and who was not at Hao Lo when McCain had this experience. Swindle says he vaguely remembers McCain telling stories, but can't remember specifics. If anything, the fact that they need to defend against this and the fact that McCain doesn't have a crystal clear explanation leads to more doubts about McCain's honesty in this story.

McCain is not above borrowing from other sources as evidenced by his theft of Jackson Browne and John Mellencamp songs, and stealing his foreign policy speeches right off the pages of Wikipedia.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/jackson-browne.html

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/94652/did_mccain_lift_his_russia-georgia_speech_from_wikip

edia/

Regarding honor among POW, McCain lost his many years ago when he worked to shut down all further investigation of remaining MIA/POW in order to open up trade with Vietnam. His father-in-law immediately opened up a beer industry there.

www.aiipowmia.com/testimony/

About twenty years ago Sixty Minutes ran a story comparing Ronald Reagan's statements about his life experiences and his lines from his movies. The jist of the report was that evidently Reagan, at best, confused life and the movies and maybe he suffered some kind of dementia. Republicans were infuriated and Sixty Minutes did not run the piece again--but we all know President Reagan in fact had Alzheimer's.

I don't know the truth of the cross in the dirt story. I doubt there's anyone around who does. But I am concerned, especially since Senator McCain declined to allow reporters to review his psychiatric records, that maybe McCain is already known to suffer senility.

The McCain camapaign released a statement on their website saying Swindle remebered McCain telling him the story in 1971.

Problem is Swindle is not telling the truth.

Get this, Politco ran a story about McCain's cross story April the 4th 2008 and Swindle was specifically interviewed on the story.

“I don’t recall us talking specifically about our faith,” says Orson Swindle, one of McCain’s closest friends and a fellow POW. “We talked about our friends, families, our resistance posture, and that our country didn’t seem to have the will to win.”

Belief in a higher power helped them survive the routine torture and daily indignities, Swindle says.

“It would help us endure what we had to endure. But we knew God wasn’t going to come down and wave a magic wand.”

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=1372E056-3048-5C12-00A06112B1C61A64

McCain is going to have to do better than Swindle on this one.

"I don't know the truth of the cross in the dirt story. I doubt there's anyone around who does. But I am concerned, especially since Senator McCain declined to allow reporters to review his psychiatric records, that maybe McCain is already known to suffer senility."

Given what we later found out about Reagan, this is certainly reason to question McCain's health. We do not need to elect yet another President with mental issues.

Reaganite, this isn't about Obama. There have been questions--originating from the right--about the veracity of the cross story. If McCain has manufactured the story or embellished the story or mythologized the story, then it speaks to his honesty and his faith. He is running on his resume and continually refers to his experience as a POW. If, it turns out, one of his most famous stories isn't true or has been embellished for effect, it is a hit to his credibility and a sad statement about his resume.

I could also care less if the story is true or not. Memory is not a precise instrument. We embellish memories all the time, tell ourselves stories to make sense of our lives.

The point is the double standard. If Obama had weaved some similar story and it turned out to have this many holes, the press would be running with it nonstop, 24/7, on every cable channel, is ability to be president would be questioned, and we would have to listen to talking heads opine about his pandering and the legitimacy of his faith.

Further, there is already evidence that McCain has cribbed other stories from other sources as well.

With McCain? Not so much. He is given the benefit of the doubt, and That. Is. It.

The cross in the dirt fabrication will be the least of McCain's worries when his POW nickname (Songbird) given to him by his fellow POW's, for telling all he knew so as to avoid torture. He made 32 videos for the North Viet Namese that at least one of them was broadcast in the South. Google McCain Songbird - check it out. His broken arms? Dumba** didn't pull in his arms when he ejected. I hope Obama is saving this for the stretch.

Twenty minutes into McCain's interview, he asked Pastor Warren "Are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court judges or should I...." Warren said "No, we're going to get back to that." BUT McCain and Pastor Warren had NOT YET TALKED about Supreme Court judges. ONLY Obama had already talked about it with Pastor Warren.

McCain either knew the questions in advance or heard Pastor Warren's questions to Obama and Obama's answers when McCain was in the "cone of silence" - his limo.