I wouldn’t place any hope in Arizona voters. They have been re-electing this asshole since Christ was a corporal.

I don’t bame him for his actions as a POW by the way. It’s his actions as a U.S. Senator that I take issue with.

Furthermore, it’s doubtful he was ever tortured, but much more likely that McCain simply invented those claims as a preemptive defense against the danger of facing a court martial for collaboration upon his return.

The Code of Conduct was changed in 1977 after evaluating the experiences of our POWs in Viet Nam. The significant change was from “bound to give only name, rank, service number and date of birth” to will “evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability.”
One of the chief proponents of this change was Captain Rodney Knutson, who believed the previous wording placed too much of a psychological burden on prisoners because their captors would not accept that and would employ whatever means necessary to break them.
Captain Knutson was himself a POW, shot down Oct. 17, 1965. There is no question of his bravery–he won a Silver Star for his actions resisting capture. The citation reads:
For gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy in North Vietnam on 17 October 1965. Shortly after parachuting onto enemy soil, he was surrounded by village militia armed with rifles. In the face of great personal risk, he elected to fight rather than surrender. Defending himself with his service revolver, he shot at his rifle-armed adversaries, inflicting two casualties prior to being overwhelmed by their superior numbers. By his daring actions, extraordinary courage, and aggressiveness in the face of the enemy, he reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Naval Service and the United States Armed Forces.
After release by the North Vietnamese, Capt. Knutson went on to have a distinguished career in the Navy. He had no problem with John McCain’s behavior as a POW; in fact, in 2007, he endorsed him for president: “Knutson says he saw McCain in various camps and he was subjected to torture like many others. Knutson said living through the conditions gives him a unique perspective, and special insight into McCain.”
Here is the complete article from which that quote was taken.
I don’t really understand what you are trying to do. At first I thought you were using the MIA issue as an example of how unreliable the press is in its role of being a watch dog over the government and how much in bed it is with the government. Then it seemed to me that you were more focused on the MIA issue. Now it seems you are pursuing a vendetta against John McCain. I don’t understand why.
You could just as easily go after Commander Lloyd Bucher, captain of the Pueblo and blast him for the confession he gave to the North Koreans. Or you could go after Navy Lt. Jeffrey N. Zaun, whose A-6E was shot down during the first Gulf War. He appeared on Iraqi TV denouncing the US. Or you could go after…. Well, there are so many, going back war after war.
Maybe you should have a little Christian charity in your heart. Or just try to imagine walking a mile in the shoes of those who suffered the horrible fate of falling into the hands of our enemies.
Listening to McCain’s audio, I felt sympathy for him. He was a victim as much as any of those who served in that war. Maybe he broke when others didn’t. But maybe you or I would have broken even sooner. We should thank God that we have not been so tested.
Let me make it clear that I do not endorse John McCain’s foreign policy views. I am a non-interventionist. I would like to see an amendment to our constitution similar to that of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, or at least like that of Article 11 of the Italian constitution. I’d also like to see an amendment abolishing the draft.
I cannot see what purpose the Viet Nam War served. It was a terrible mistake, if not a monstrous crime. I am suspicious of the motives behind the Cold War and am not convinced it was legitimate or necessary (perhaps I have been influenced too much by Gar Alperovitz).
Moving into our own times, I also think the Iraq war was of the same nature as the Viet Nam War–unnecessary and promoted disingenuously, at the very least. Perhaps it was even worse because we had the example of Viet Nam to remind us of of the cost of lies and folly. I also believe the continuation of the Afghan war has been a mistake, although there was some sense to it, at least initially.

We’ll see the transcript on the front page of the NY Times and the Washington Post, right???

Good work, Mr. Unz. Coincidentally, I posted a message just two days ago in response to James Kirkpatrick’s most recent article, in which I repeated the charges that McCain was a “phony” war hero simply based on his 1973 U.S. News interview, which he gave just a month or two after being released by the North Vietnamese. https://www.unz.com/article/mccain-ryan-ayotte-trump-confronts-the-rats/#comment-1517946 Apart from his clear admission in the interview that, four days after being captured, he offered to give the North Vietnamese military information in exchange for being given hospital care for his wounds, which he received, there is the uncomfortable fact that the period when he was being treated in the hospital for his wounds exactly matches the period cited in his Silver Star citation when he was supposedly being tortured, something he doesn’t even hint at in his published interview. In the meantime, I have to listen to the garbage spouted by the vaunted “historian” Doris Kearns Goodwin on Meet the Press castigating Donald Trump for even questioning the sacrosanct war hero status of John McCain. And Trump doesn’t even make the best, irrefutable case against McCain based on written records that one would think that “historian” Doris Goodwin would bother to read. All one has to do is read the first few pages of the 1973 interview and compare them with the brief Silver Star citation to conclude that blatant lies were being told to make McCain into a “hero,” which he clearly wasn’t, apart from any propaganda he made for the North Vietnamese.

McCain is guilty of “crimes against peace” in broadly the same sense as that implied by the victor’s justice dished out to Germans who were convicted of the same after WW2. Given that there is no prospect of him ever being brought to justice for the wars and suffering he has actively promoted, for either ideological or self-interested reasons (depending how far you believe his claimed rationalisations for the wars and confrontations he has promoted), there seems no good reason whatsoever to feel any sympathy for him at all.

If he deserved any sympathy for his suffering in Vietnam, he lost that entirely when he became an active warmonger promoting the use of war as a tool of ordinary US foreign policy.

Finally getting him out of the US regime power structure can only be a major step forward, if it can be achieved.

Unz’s showcasing of McCain’s collaboration goes strictly to demonstrating motive for McCain’s later efforts to shut down any serious discussion of finding any remaining living service members still in Vietnam.

I suppose you could call that a vendetta … others might see it as a quest for justice.

I really can’t figure out what Mr. Unz is basing “it’s doubtful he was ever tortured” on.

In one of the previous McCain threads (and again above) longtime commenter tbraton actually did find some notable apparent inconsistencies between McCain’s story as he told it in 1973 and as he has told it in later years. But Unz himself has never referred to that or to any other evidence – he just keeps asserting this over and over. The tape that has been discovered is a tape that McCain himself has always admitted existed! It does not imply longtime collaboration, lack of torture, or anything else. In my subjective opinion, McCain’s tone of voice hardly sounds very enthusiastic.

For a video of John McCain upon his release (limping but without crutches), see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YwnTnmbOMQ
Video Link This video was first shown in September 2008 by a Swedish TV network and runs a little over a minute.

BTW in Googling, I came across a whole trove of anti-McCain videos that were run in 2008 questioning McCain’s status as a war hero and his fitness to be President. That may explain all the attacks on Trump for merely questioning how a POW can be regarded as a war hero (without something more, as in the case of Adm. James Stockdale). I guess the only people who are permitted to question McCain’s story are the liberal Democrats.

4. Would you really expect this man to casually admit to being a torturer?

If he admits that he tortured other people (as the North Vietnamese certainly did do) but denies that he tortured McCain, that would be interesting. But that does not seem to be the case. In this article he denies torturing anyone at all – and yet he still portrays McCain as hostile and unfriendly, not as a willing collaborator:

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2008/10/25/john-mccain-was-never-tortured-my-jail-says-tran-trong-duyet

“(3) The top-ranking POWs held with him later told a journalist that they very much doubted that McCain was ever tortured, since he spent his time in the part of the camp reserved for the most cooperating prisoners. This totally shocked the reporter interviewing them.”

In the 1973 interview in U.S. News (May 1973—according to the video I posted above, McCain and the others were released by the NV on March 14, 1973), McCain is quite specific about the date his “solitary confinement” began (March 1968) and how long it lasted (at least 2 years):

“That left Day and me alone together. He was rather banged up himself—a bad right arm, which he still has. He had escaped after he had been captured down South and was shot when they recaptured him. As soon as I was able to walk, which was in March of 1968, Day was moved out.

I remained in solitary confinement from that time on for more than two years. I was not allowed to see or talk to or communicate with any of my fellow prisoners. My room was fairly decent-sized—I’d say it was about 10 by 10. The door was solid. There were no windows. The only ventilation came from two small holes at the top in the ceiling, about 6 inches by 4 inches. The roof was tin and it got hot as hell in there. The room was kind of dim—night and day—but they always kept on a small light bulb, so they could observe me. I was in that place for two years.”

Later in the interview, he states he began to be tortured some time after his father took over as commander in chief of U.S. Forces in the Pacific, July 4, 1978:

“When I said that, the guards, who were all in the room—about 10 of them—really laid into me. They bounced me from pillar to post, kicking and laughing and scratching. After a few hours of that, ropes were put on me and I sat that night bound with ropes. Then I was taken to a small room. For punishment they would almost always take you to another room where you didn’t have a mosquito net or a bed or any clothes. For the next four days, I was beaten every two to three hours by different guards. My left arm was broken again and my ribs were cracked.

They wanted a statement saying that I was sorry for the crimes that I had committed against North Vietnamese people and that I was grateful for the treatment that I had received from them. This was the paradox—so many guys were so mistreated to get them to say they were grateful. But this is the Communist way.”

He claims he held out for four days, but, on the fifth day, he gave in and wrote and signed the statement requested by the N.V.

A couple of things should be kept in mind. First, by his own admission, he was in solitary confinement for at least two years beginning in March 1968. Secondly, any torture began after July 4, 1968 when his father took over as CINCPAC. Thirdly, the Silver Star citation did not cite any actions by McCain meriting the medal other than the period from the end of October to early December 1967, when he was in the hospital being treated for his wounds and his account makes no mention of any torture being administered. Fourthly, he admits that he finally submitted to the NV torture by signing the confession on the fifth day of the “torture” in the late summer of 1968. Fifthly, the regulations governing the award of a Silver Star contain a “two witnesses” requirement, which was completely flouted in McCain’s case.

For whatever it may be worth, the McCain U.S. News and World Report article is here:

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account

The Silver Star citation is here:

http://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=23680

The main question mark is that the citation has an end date of December 8, 1967. McCain places his main torture (not necessarily his only torture) later. It is unclear to me at the present time where the December 8 date came from.

Needless to say if you were in a camp of detention you would have taken a bullet to the head rather than read that statement, all of the statement was obvious.

Tokyo Rose is mostly invented.

After World War II ended in 1945, the U.S. military detained Toguri for a year before releasing her for lack of evidence. Department of Justice officials agreed that her broadcasts were “innocuous”.[7] But when Toguri tried to return to the US, a popular uproar ensued because Walter Winchell (a powerful broadcasting personality) and the American Legion lobbied relentlessly for a trial, prompting the Federal Bureau of Investigation to renew its investigation of Toguri’s wartime activities. Her 1949 trial resulted in a conviction on one of eight counts of treason. In 1974, investigative journalists found that key witnesses claimed that they were forced to lie during testimony. U.S. President Gerald Ford pardoned Toguri in 1977.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Rose

McCain breaking under pressure isn’t the problem in my view.

It’s that his entire career is built on a myth.

If McCain fessed up to what really happened and then built his career on truth and honesty, that’d be okay.

But he amassed a lot of credibility precisely because of the heroic myth. He presented himself as a man of iron principles. So, his overtures to Democrats were said to be principled than opportunistic. Because he’s the sort who would never give up on his principles.

But it’s a myth. He broke. Okay, so he broke. It’s human.

But the myth of Iron John made him get away with a lot of crap.

And if his story is a myth, he should have been the LAST PERSON to deal with the POW issue since his story is compromised and he could be blackmailed over it.

His cracking under Neocon and Democratic pressure over and over can now be seen for it was. Not principles based on open-mindedness but sheer opportunism.

If anybody deserves to be the target of a vendetta, it’s McCain. And his odious, nepotistic blockhead of a daughter. What a vile little tribe of invade-the-world, invite-the-world, nation-wrecking warmongers.

Arizona should’ve voted for JD Hayworth.

Concur… I think after about 5 minutes of North Vietnamese interrogation I’d be selling my mother down the river. Who cares what a POW has got to say? We should cut them 100% slack to say anything they like to stay alive. If they want to resist, good for them, and probably psychologically healthy. But I also think given what any POW goes through, probably not a good idea to let them in politics. I think a lot of his ideas are a result of blows to the head.

John

Tedious.

Doris Goodwin has been caught plagiarizing more than once, too.

For those of us who came to man’s estate knowing good and well how unconscionable our powers that be actually are, I mean when you are perfectly aware they will mass murder citizens under cover of the biggest lie imaginable, well you can’t help but read Ron’s American Pravada essays with a certain ambivalent repose, an arrogant gratefulness that don’t solve ultimate cynicism a wink. For can a final indignity really spell a new day? We Fooled The Smartest Man in America, Til We Allowed Him the Perfect Way Not To Matter–Ha! Nice to read actualities so smartly written anyways.

My point is this, that it is to be feared you won’t hear the truth where it matters most because we have it here. And where it matters most is the congressional record, Damnit! Why exactly did McCain have” the most power” in that 1991 committee? What does that even mean? I’m pretty sure it means he set the agenda that became what got on the record, by viciously attacking anyone who might commandeer the direction of inquiry he was domineering, shouting them down righteously such that he made no sense, no sense at all. Either you’re a true patriot or I’m a true patriot and obviously you can’t be trusted if I’m the one shouting you down. What?

If Ron Unz would shine his inspired lightning strike sentences on how the congressional record is maintained, I take it he’d be zeroing in on a plague spot. I know Feinstein has corrupted it out of vanity, and I know the ones who really know offer misdirection instead of guidance when it comes to Facts of the Case like Ezra Pound’s. Oh yes, as sure as I’m telling you.

I retreat to the nice idea of the remnant. And as I’ve said before, that’s the hitch in human nature that secrets the truth in a sacred way at the end of the day. That’s the romantic idea that’s real as long as you don’t say so. Men are not born philosophers, and Plato was a poet.

Crappy pilot too. Lost four airplanes, if one includes the one he was shot down in. My father, for comparison, logged over 10000 hours, 65 combat missions, never lost an airplane.

I know, but I couldn’t find a way to work it in my post. She was barred for a while from PBS and NBC, but I notice she has been back on NBC for quite a while. I no longer watch PBS so I have no idea whether they have forgiven her too. I assume they have. I just think it’s a terrible indictment of her abilities as a historian to defend McCain’s war hero status, the record is so blatantly clear. Thanks for the addition.

That may have something to do with the fact that he graduated fifth from the bottom of his 800-member class at the Naval Academy. How does someone who fared so miserably in academics get such a plum assignment upon graduation? Might it have something to do with the fact that his father and grandfather were both high ranking admirals? To recap McCain’s naval career: (1) he probably shouldn’t have been admitted to the Naval Academy; (2) he should have been kicked out on several occasions; (3) upon graduating fifth from the bottom of his 800-member class, he gets a plum assignment flying planes that is normally reserved for much higher-ranked cadets; (4) he proceeds to either lose or damage five planes during his brief naval career; (5) he gets shot down over North Vietnam and, after spending 5-1/2 years as a POW, gets awarded a Silver Star for resisting torture during his first six weeks in captivity, when, by his own admission, he was in a N.V. hospital being treated for wounds, treatment he admits obtaining by promising to provide the N.V. military information in violation of the military code.

You forgot to mention he was the first and last pilot of any nation to inflict the greatest, near-fatal damage on an aircraft carrier in battle.

LOL, yeah, that too….

Thought I would supplement your informative post with a few minor details. 😉 BTW I imagine your father and countless other patriotic Americans who did it the right way and performed valuable services to our country in a professional manner must really resent the way that McCain has been handled, put on a pedestal and given unquestioned sacrosanct status as a war hero. I know that would be my reaction if I had your father’s background. That’s why I refer to McCain as a “phony” war hero. It’s a myth built on lies.

After watching that Swedish video, am I the only one who thinks the released prisoners look surprisingly well fed? They don’t have the look of people were recently emaciated, then quickly fattened up for release. They look like normal, healthy men.

Was it normal practice for the North Vietnamese to adequately feed prisoners? Did officers and/or VIPs get extra food?

I’m not trying to imply anything about McCain, or his fellow prisoners. I won’t speak ill of things a man does under circumstances I don’t understand. (his record in government, however, is atrocious) I’m just curious about the prison food situation, and whether or not those men were representative of the prisoners who came home.

That was my reaction as well. The reason I posted the video was to underscore Ron Unz’s point about how McCain looked completely different (and moved well with a slight limp) than he did in that famous photo showing him on crutches receiving a medal from Nixon, when he was, in fact, recovering from corrective surgery to repair the work of the North Vietnamese doctors. That is the photo that most Americans remember and helped contribute the myth of the “war hero” John McCain. They all look remarkably well-fed.

Trump criticism of fallen soldier’s family shines spotlight on America’s veneration of veterans

Many who serve come from a military background, which McCoy believes is creating a “family business” — almost “a warrior caste.”

Trump criticism of fallen soldier’s family shines spotlight on America’s veneration of veterans

Sen. John McCain is idolized by the mainstream media because like his father Admiral John S. McCain Jr. is a traitor for Israel. The Admiral was fully involved in whitewashing Israeli attack on USS Liberty.

On January 29, 2015, a large number of protesters disturbed a US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington DC, when three former US secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright and George Shultz, all Israel-First Jews, were about to enlighten the committee members on global security issues, in Russia, Iran, Syria, terrorism, etc. The protest was lead by members of anti-war group CODEPINK that called for a citizen arrest of Henry Kissinger as a WAR CRIMINAL. Watch video below.

John McCain later apologized to Henry Kissinger on behalf of his “uncivilized” fellow goyim.

Sen. John McCain, one of the top anti-Muslim and pro-Israel US lawmakers, who was chairing the committee, called the protestors “lowlife scum” and said it was “the most disgraceful and despicable demonstration he had ever seen.” He even accused the protesters of threatening ‘God’s Chosen’ Henry Kissinger physically. The COPEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin (Jewish) denied McCain’s claim.

“CODEPINK is really proud of our action in the Senate today, speaking out on behalf of the people of Indochina, China, East Timor and peace-loving people everywhere. Henry Kissinger is responsible for the deaths of millions. He’s a murderer, a liar, a crook, and a thug, and should be tried at the Hague,” said Ms Benjamin…..

https://rehmat1.com/2015/01/31/john-mccain-defends-three-israel-first-criminals/

The John McCain inertia vote may have died off here in Arizona. Kelli Ward has a chance to send John McCain his retirement watch.

Hillary's Favorite Republican pic.twitter.com/W2ZCUbjWLy

— Dr. Kelli Ward (@kelliwardaz) August 7, 2016

The main reason McCain is no war hero is that he fought for the wrong side.

What about his role in the USS Forrestal incident? That reeks of coverup

“For whatever it may be worth, the McCain U.S. News and World Report article is here”

I don’t know about you, but a first person account given by McCain within two months of his release (shown getting off plane on March 14, 1973; date of publication of U.S. News was May 14, 1973) is generally considered by most people to be worth quite a lot. It’s the later stories you have to be suspicious of. BTW I’m sure that McCain was debriefed by the Navy upon his release and before he gave his first person account/interview to U.S. News, so it is reasonable to assume that what he told the Navy matches what he told U.S. News. Of course, the only way to find out is to open McCain’s file to the public, which is why he has been so adamantly opposed to making his file available for viewing. But, if what he told the Navy one or two or three weeks before matches what he said in his interview, then what the Silver Star citation says in support of the award of the medal to McCain is all made up. (Of course, we saw that very thing happen in the case of the Silver Star posthumously awarded the tragic hero Pat Tillman after he was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. The military demeaned the good name of a noble soul for their own tawdry purposes of promoting that god-forsaken war.)

” The main question mark is that the citation has an end date of December 8, 1967. McCain places his main torture (not necessarily his only torture) later. It is unclear to me at the present time where the December 8 date came from.”

First, the only instances of torture in his first person account occur many months after he has been confined to solitary confinement at the end of March 1968. There is absolutely nothing in his U.S. News account remotely resembling what the Silver Star citation briefly describes: ” For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity while interned as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam from 27 October to 8 December 1967. His captors, completely ignoring international agreements, subjected him to extreme mental and physical cruelties in an attempt to obtain military information and false confessions for propaganda purposes.” BTW he admits in his U.S. News account that he broke after four days of such torture in the late summer of 1968 and signed the document the N.V. had demanded from him. That may explain why the Silver Star citation does not focus on the period when McCain claims he was tortured (based on his own account in violation of the “two-witness rule” governing award of Silver Stars), since it would be hard to reconcile McCain’s admitted actions with the language in the S.S. citation: “Through his resistance to those brutalities, he contributed significantly toward the eventual abandonment of harsh treatment by the North Vietnamese, which was attracting international attention. By his determination, courage, resourcefulness, and devotion to duty, he reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of Naval Service and the United States Armed Forces.”

As far as your puzzlement about the December 8, 1967 date, that corresponds to the “about six weeks” of hospitalization McCain claims in his interview. He says he asked to be taken to the hospital in exchange for military information on the fourth day of captivity (Oct. 30). If you add the last two days of October to the four weeks and two days of November, six weeks would take you to December 10, which is close enough more or less, considering he probably lacked access to calendars, probably lacked a wristwatch and was in a foggy state of mind as a result of the medical care. Even the S.S. citation, by citing the time period from Oct. 27 (second day of captivity) to December 8, exactly matches the six weeks McCain said he was in the hospital. What I find interesting about your remark is that you are more concerned about niggardly, irrelevant details than you are about the gross contradiction between the period when McCain was supposedly being tortured which almost exactly matches the time he was in the hospital being treated for his wounds.

BTW here is what McCain said in the 8th paragraph of his U.S News account describing the first few days of captivity: “For the next three or four days, I lapsed from conscious to unconsciousness. During this time, I was taken out to interrogation—which we called a “quiz”—several times. That’s when I was hit with all sorts of war-criminal charges. This started on the first day. I refused to give them anything except my name, rank, serial number and date of birth. They beat me around a little bit. I was in such bad shape that when they hit me it would knock me unconscious. They kept saying, “You will not receive any medical treatment until you talk.” Try reconciling that with what the S.S. citation says.

“Concur… I think after about 5 minutes of North Vietnamese interrogation I’d be selling my mother down the river.”

That’s why you wouldn’t be a hero. Average guy reacting the average way, sure, perhaps no harm no foul at some level of torture. But no hero.

But McCain is unjustly passed off as a hero, which he wasn’t either in this situation. On this issue, I’d settle to have him viewed as some ordinary schlub who has no moral authority whatsoever but also not dishonored.

But that isn’t the narrative on the guy, he lives a lie.

I agree with you and John. I also agree with John’s observation that “But I also think given what any POW goes through, probably not a good idea to let them in politics. ” I don’t think it is so much blows to the head but the fact that any POW suffers emotional trauma which makes him unfit to hold high office.

but that’s why those particular folks were chosen by
hillary’s campaign!

y’see, they get to condemn trump, make slanderous
accusations, safely behind the wall of veneration.

sort of like a bank robber with hostages holding up a
small child to keep the police from shooting.

a shame trump took the bait.

I always knew McCain he was a traitor, just like his old man who whitewashed the Israel attack on the USS Liberty to get his son his senate seat. I didn’t even need to hear this recording to kn0w McCain was a traitor. All one needs to do is see the way he constantly votes for war and expansion of empire for the elites at the cost of the common man’s life. He is heavily invested in the military-industrial complex and continues to vote for war everytime even though he helped turn the ME into a boiling cauldron at he cost of several trillion dollars. Now he wants war with China and Russia. He even thought al Qaeda was connected to Iran, that’s what a senile jerk he is. And, let’s not forget his arming of ISIS and al Nusra, his so-called Syrian moderates. He is a national disgrace. This comes from a Republican and retired Army officer. He and his father betrayed the American fighting man.

His father’s treason for Israel and the attack on the USS Liberty bought him his absolution. Besides, what’s a little treason when Israel benefits from it? Like father, like son.

I don’t believe none of what you wrote. after mc cain was captured many US jets and B52 bombers were shot down being he gave them the routes they were using going in and coming out so they set there SAM’s up

As to the USS Forrestal /McCain incident. I can only add that according to eye witnesses at the scene, when the inferno erupted behind him, McClain leaped from the wing of his plane to the deck and hi-tailed it straight into the Sick Bay, where ship doctors found him lying on the exam table. And although not having been injured from the jump or the fire (he had started) never paused, never looked back, and never offered assistance to shipmates desperately battling a serious fire, that again, he had started. I believe I kinda-sorta have an idea how real “heroes” instinctively respond in situations of this order, so if the above account given by eye-witnesses carries any weight, he is far from being one. Then again, George W. is another one who could tell you what can happen to a mans war records and reputation when he just happens to have a father sitting as US president at the time. I would also add, that if Doris Goodwin can resurrect and re-hero a war criminal like Abraham Lincoln, creating a hero out of John McCain is child’s play.

877 cash now!

I’d put that in the “traitor” category based on what you said, but I suppose that at this point, what difference does it make?