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WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2008

Is McCain's Hero Aura A Political Shield?

Republican's Longtime Reluctance To Talk About His POW Travails Has Disappeared In Political Season

  • Play CBS Video Video John McCain's Band Of Brothers

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  • This photo provided by the Library of Congress shows John McCain, front right, with his squadron in 1965. McCain, a former Navy fighter pilot, was captured by the Vietnamese, tortured and imprisoned for more than five years.

    This photo provided by the Library of Congress shows John McCain, front right, with his squadron in 1965. McCain, a former Navy fighter pilot, was captured by the Vietnamese, tortured and imprisoned for more than five years.  (AP Photo/Library of Congress)

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(AP)  How dare you say that about John McCain, war hero?

That, in so many words, is the line of counterattack coming from Republicans who only four years ago dismissed the war service of another decorated Vietnam veteran with his own story of bravery.

For decades, McCain was reluctant to talk about his Hanoi prison camp heroism. That reticence has vanished in the blizzard of ads, speeches and talking points before, during and surely after the convention that made him the Republican nominee.

His service in that war is held out as the core reason to trust his judgment and character, a point made with endless retellings by his supporters of the thumbs-up he gave in the face of torture. McCain's wartime crucible also is used to inoculate him against all criticism, none having to do with his behavior four decades ago.

Think McCain owns too many houses to relate to the common American? Not fair - he lived in a North Vietnam cell for 5½ years. How dare you?

Question his temperament or his temper? Look what he's lived through.

Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, a political rival but Vietnam comrade in arms, says McCain has lived through so much he is entitled to use his past any way he wants.

But the Republicans busily shaping this narrative have been selective in the value they assign military service.

Four years ago, Democratic nominee John Kerry's valor in combat was belittled by his opponents and famously denigrated by some, even as the GOP re-nominated a president who had stayed out of Vietnam in his youth and taken the country into a war going sour.

An honorable military record was no longer sacrosanct.

The attacks started at the margins - the so-called Swiftboat Veterans for Truth ads from outside the campaign, declaring Kerry "unfit to serve" - and worked their way deeper into President Bush's team.

Going beyond their effort to paint another Vietnam veteran, Al Gore, as weak in 2000, Republicans exploited Kerry's complicated history as both war hero and war protester; Bush confidante Karen Hughes declared the latter to be offensive and said he had faked throwing away his medals at a 1971 demonstration. (He said he had thrown away his ribbons while keeping his medals)

McCain appealed to his party to knock it off.

Democrats, slow to counter the storm, addressed it in ways now echoed by McCain's supporters. They said the past is prologue.

They said that the kind of president their candidate would be can be divined from the kind of warrior he was.

"The defining moment is 35 years ago," former Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, said then. "John Kerry chose to volunteer and serve his country and risk his life doing so. George Bush did not."

That same war now is the defining moment for McCain, in the eyes of Republicans. Former Sen. Fred Thompson, for one, spared the Republican convention few of the shocking details of McCain's captivity as he declared that the Arizona senator possesses strengths of character sought since the very beginning of history.

Said McCain's running mate Sarah Palin:

He's compassionate now because he was powerless then.

He has "wisdom that comes even to the captives by the grace of God."

He possesses the "special confidence of those who have seen evil and have seen how evil is overcome."

Yet McCain stands accused of lapses of judgment, moral failings and selfishness. He's been called "dishonest" and a "coward" for putting political expedience ahead of principle in the 2000 campaign, during the debate over the Confederate flag. And it's been said that Hanoi really didn't change the kind of person he was.

Those are all charges that McCain, a reflective man in normal times, has leveled at himself.

How dare he?


©MMVIII, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Add a Comment See all 13 Comments
by mydiatribe September 5, 2008 10:50 AM EDT
Honestly, and this coming from a Vietnam Veteran, there IS NO COMPARISON between John MCain''s POW experience of five and a half years and John Kerry''s 4 and a half months on the Swift Boats. Not to mention what those veterans who actually served with these two men say about them.
Reply to this comment
by armydog2 September 5, 2008 10:24 AM EDT
I respect the senators service to our country. He uses this as an excuse for everything,especially when he can''t come up with a good answer.PTSD, something hecertainly has after spending 5 years in the hanoi hilton. that is what is so frightening about him because the PTSD never goes away you can only manage it with treatment and medication.And now he brings on sara barracuda who appears to have issues of her own. they are a very dangerous team and definitely not good for the USA
Reply to this comment
by america1st September 5, 2008 9:13 AM EDT
Have any of you ever had a job interview? Do you not put your accomplishments on your resume? Do you not tell your interviewer about what you have done in the past that makes you qualified and reveals your character? The campaign process is an interview for the most important job in the world! You are being interviewed by millions of people! Don''t you think you should tout the great things you have done?
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by jsd330 September 4, 2008 11:58 PM EDT
Let us not forget that there were more P.O.W.s then just McCain. How many of them spent more time in the Hanoi Hilton then he did ? How many of them refused early release ? Look up McCains senate voting record on veterans issues, really bad, and he calls himself a veteran. He is willing to send our troops in "HARMS WAY", but he sure doesn''t want to take care of them when they come home. I urge all of my fellow veterans to see through all of this John McCain hero B.S. He is no more of a hero then the thousands of other P.O.W.s from all of the wars we have been in. I am sure there are quite a few of them that had it a lot harder then John McCain did.
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by chuegevera September 4, 2008 11:21 PM EDT
McCain is only a POWand not a war hero.
Reply to this comment
by callurfears September 4, 2008 10:51 PM EDT


Let McCain use and abuse his POW experience for crass political gain.

It will not do him any good. Americans see through this smokescreen.

Americans want answers to the problems brought on by 8 years of REPUBLICAN MISMANAGEMENT. More of the same is not going to cut it.

Americans are not the stupid people McCain and the Republicans think they are. Americans can tell it''s still a pig, even if it is wearing lipstick.


Reply to this comment
by callurfears September 4, 2008 10:50 PM EDT


Let McCain use and abuse his POW experience for crass political gain.

It will not do him any good. Americans see through this smokescreen.

Americans want answers to the problems brought on by 8 years of REPUBLICAN MISMANAGEMENT. More of the same is not going to cut it.

Americans are the stupid people McCain and the Republicans think they are. Americans can tell it''s still a pig, even if it is wearing lipstick.


Reply to this comment
by shouterguy September 4, 2008 10:25 PM EDT
Katherine Harris. She looks like...Katherine Harris.
Reply to this comment
by shouterguy September 4, 2008 10:13 PM EDT
Katherine Harris. She looks like...Katherine Harris.
Reply to this comment
by Torilin September 4, 2008 10:06 PM EDT
Whips and sticks may break your bone but sitting in a prisn cell will keep you away from flying bullets!
Reply to this comment
by Torilin September 4, 2008 10:01 PM EDT
Gotta milk it for all its worth. I say he bribed the Hanoi guards so he can sit it out while others die in the battle field!
Reply to this comment
by shouterguy September 4, 2008 10:01 PM EDT
NEW DNC AD:
Script, "More of the Same," 30 seconds
BUSH: The fundamentals of our economy are strong.
MCCAIN: The fundamentals of America%u2019s economy are strong.
ANNCR: Michigan is struggling, but some people don%u2019t seem to notice%u2026
Bush and McCain %u2013 more of the same: tax breaks for companies shipping jobs overseas.
Billions more in tax breaks for oil companies.
BUSH: The fundamentals of our economy are strong.
MCCAIN: The fundamentals of America%u2019s economy are strong.
BUSH & MCCAIN (speaking in unison): The fundamentals of our/America%u2019s economy are strong.
Reply to this comment
by lovesamerica September 4, 2008 9:53 PM EDT
When a politician does something worth mentioning, even in the distant past,they milk it like a cow,but if they do anything less than favorable,even if it is in the recent past, it was just a mistake...hmmmm
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