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Okay. Maybe it wasn’t exactly a “cross”
John McCain shares a story with us:
Either McCain ripped his "Cross in the Dirt" story off or Solzhenitsyn and the two of them had nearly the exact same experience. Three kossacks explore the details, here, here, and here.
If it was stolen, I wonder McCain made it up himself, or if Mark Salter came up with it, and somehow convinced McCain it was true?
Andrew Sullivan asks the right question:
As he tells it today, it was the pivotal moment in his struggle to survive in the Hanoi Hilton. And yet, in his first thorough account of his time in captivity, in 1973, the story is absent. … I have one simple question: when was the first time that McCain told this story?
As for whether or not there’s precedent for McCain fabricating POW stories, consider the fact that he claimed that he became a fan of ABBA’s Dancing Queen before his capture (Dancing Queen came out two years after his release), and consider his convenient swapping of the Green Bay Packers with the Pittsburgh Steelers in another POW story when he was in eastern PA.
Now I don’t know if this really happened to John McCain or not. He may think it happened, I mean, c’mon he’s ninety-one and he sometimes mixes up his experiences from the Vietnam war with something that happened to him during the Spanish-American war. It happens.
The important thing is that the rubes parishioners at Rick Warren’s House of Tithing church cooed appreciatively because these are the kinds of stories that reinforce their faith much like sightings of the Virgin Mary in the gravy pan at Hometown Buffet. Take it from me ( a Catholic regardless of the restraining order), true faith is a powerful and mysterious thing that is as hard to find as, say, the clitoris. I mean there is a lot of groping and fumbling around and false starts until finally a voice whispers in your ear, "Yeah. That’s it…or at least close enough for government work".
Needless to say the "Cross in the Dirt" story focus-grouped considerably better with the religious demographic than the story he had been telling to veterans groups:
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I can just see imagine the rationale from the brain trust that came up with this idea: “C’mon–how many patriotic Murkins do you think actually read the verbose ramblings of a former Soviet dissident? They’ll never find out….”
I’m starting to detect a pattern here. Actually, it’s pretty much the same pattern that I’ve seen in Republican Presidents and wannabee’s since Nixon: obfuscate, bullshit, shading the truth, misrepresenting, and flat out lying.
Is it something organic or is it a genetic thing?
Actually I would cut him slack on the ABBA thing. He says his “taste in music stopped” when he impacted that SAM, not that he was an ABBA fan before impact. To me, having one’s taste in music “stopped” doesn’t preclude becoming a fan of crappy music released after that point.
Heh-
http://www.docudharma.com/show…..aryId=8484
…c’mon he’s ninety-one…
This error is grossly unfair. Saying that McCain is 91 years old implies certain things that are probably untrue. He is actually 112 and, therefore, quite fit both physically and mentally for his age. (It’s easier to discern the age of someone if you listen to what they consider to be jokes.)
The cross story may just be one that was implanted during the brainwashing sessions with that guy that used to always be on Hawaii 5-O.
it’s in that amendment to the constitution that they forgot to publish: “we the people shall allow ourselves to be lied to repeatedly and taken for ride after ride and learn nothing from the experience. history is not to teach any lessons whatsoever…”
Yeah, but I had a similar experience my sophomore year in high school. I was serving a detention when one of the detention hall teachers came and just stood next to me, saying nothing. I looked down, and she had used her sandaled toe in the sand to draw a perfect likeness of the 1977 Pittsburg Steelers defense line, plus Bart Starr. Without saying a word, she ducked her head and ran through sniper fire back into the building. I don’t know why the incident just sticks in my mind, out of the days in detention.
John McCain can say or do anything he wants because he was a POW. Thems the rules and you gots to follow them.
No one has ever wanted to be President more than this man, and if you combine that with a 91 year old brain, sputtering and sparking like a fork left in the microwave, I’ll think you will see more of this.
Truly scary, but it doesn’t concern me as much as the laughter and knowing nod of Mrs. Hatmandu when I showed her the clitoris metaphor.
Okay Crosstimbers, I know you’re lying, because “Pittsburg” is spelled “Pittsburgh”. Or maybe you just had a dumb teacher. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure the weenie Obama campaign would. I totally believe the sniper fire.
GO STEELERS!
I said I was in detention and she was a detention teacher. Neither of us were in English or geography class. I feel that this evidence substantiates my recollection.
Yes, soon, McCain will merge these stories in his mind, resulting in a riveting account of how he spent five years in captivity with a cross hidden up his ass.
I’d like to say “only if the pandering appeals to a needed demographic”, but that gives him too much credit.