Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
During the forum at Saddleback Church the other day, McCain told a familiar story, about the guard that drew a cross in the dirt and gave him hope and faith to survive his time as a POW. Many are now accusing him of stealing the story, making it up or telling it in contradictory ways. Here's what McCain said:
It was Christmas day, we were allowed to stand outside of our cell for a few minutes, and those days we were not allowed to see or communicate with each other although we certainly did. And I was stadning outside for my few minutes, outside my cell. He came walking up. He stood there for a minute and with his sandal on the dirt in the courtyard he drew a cross and he stood there and a minute later, he rubbed it out and walked away. For a minute there, there was just two Christians worshiping together. I'll never forget that moment...
A Kos poster points out that this almost identical story was told of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's time in a Soviet gulag. That does make it seem rather suspect, though it's possible that it happened twice.
Perhaps more damning, however, is that another Kos poster points out that this story, which McCain now uses as a crucial moment in his own ability to survive his treatment as a POW, a moment that built his faith and hope and allowed him to endure the Hanoi Hilton, is not mentioned at all in McCain's 1973 US News and World Report story about his time as a prisoner. He does talk in that story about the importance of religion to the prisoners and he even tells another story about a VC guard being kind to him by loosening his ropes. So why wouldn't he include that obviously inspiring story about a moment he'll never forget?
Some have also claimed that he once told the story about another POW, not himself. The evidence for that is a speech McCain gave in 2000 -- the same speech where he labeled Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance." The New York Times has a transcript of that speech and this is the relevant section:
Many years ago a scared American prisoner of war in Vietnam was tied in torture ropes by his tormentors and left alone in an empty room to suffer through the night. Later in the evening a guard he had never spoken to entered the room and silently loosened the ropes to relieve his suffering. Just before morning, that same guard came back and re-tightened the ropes before his less humanitarian comrades returned. He never said a word to the grateful prisoner, but some months later, on a Christmas morning, as the prisoner stood alone in the prison courtyard, the same good Samaritan walked up to him and stood next to him for a few moments. Then with his sandal, the guard drew a cross in the dirt. Both prisoner and guard both stood wordlessly there for a minute or two, venerating the cross, until the guard rubbed it out and walked away.
That still isn't very conclusive, though. He could have been referring to himself in that story, he doesn't specifically say it was someone else. That's a relatively common rhetorical trick to use, discussing something that happened to yourself as happening to "someone." There seems to be some smoke here, but no fire yet. Nothing to show conclusively that he's embellishing or borrowing the story and it never really happened to him. But color me skeptical at this point.
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McCain used the story in the Warren interview to avoid talking about his personal religious beliefs, which he is clearly uncomfortable venerating. It's like he's got a checklist on where he needs to stand to win the social conservative vote, with absolutely zero understanding or empathy for the positions he's taken.
I still believe we should fear a McCain presidency even though it's obvious he's not as devout as he's claimed, and that's because we should take his promise seriously that he will nominate justices to SCOTUS with theocratic/corporatist political agendas.
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 18, 2008 9:55 AM
Is this the same McCain that approves of torture, and who was tortured into a false confession?
Posted by: Axis of Weasel | August 18, 2008 10:10 AM
it seems that the first time this cross story showed up, McCain told it about an American prisoner (not himself) it has since morphed, he is now the prisoner
Story originally came from:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" - 1973 (of whom McCain is a fan)
McCains own words:
THE 2000 CAMPAIGN; Excerpt From McCain's Speech:
Many years ago a scared American prisoner of war in Vietnam was tied in torture ropes by his tormentors and left alone in an empty room to suffer through the night. Later in the evening a guard he had never spoken to entered the room and silently loosened the ropes to relieve his suffering. Just before morning, that same guard came back and re-tightened the ropes before his less humanitarian comrades returned. He never said a word to the grateful prisoner, but some months later, on a Christmas morning, as the prisoner stood alone in the prison courtyard, the same good Samaritan walked up to him and stood next to him for a few moments. Then with his sandal, the guard drew a cross in the dirt. Both prisoner and guard both stood wordlessly there for a minute or two, venerating the cross, until the guard rubbed it out and walked away.
NY Times 2000 link: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904EFDE1239F93AA15751C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Posted by: richCares | August 18, 2008 10:12 AM
That does make it seem rather suspect, though it's possible that it happened twice.
IIRC, stories exactly like this date back to the earliest days of Christians finding each other under persecution. So it's perfectly plausible that this happened a LOT more than twice.
Of course, by the same token, it's also plausible that such stories have been MADE UP more than twice in order to reinforce the "my faith in Christ got me through tough times" message that the faithful need to hear.
All in all, I don't think this story has a lot of legs.
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 18, 2008 10:18 AM
It seems obvious to me that he does get along well with reality.
As a commenter noted on kos, this story is reminiscent of Reagan conflating reality and a movie role, where the hero "went down with his airplane" during WWII.
McCain - Dumb, stupid and a liar. Yep. It's Johnny McBush for Pres.
Posted by: J-Dog | August 18, 2008 10:27 AM
Dear American Citizens and the media
Challenge to Media.
As a disabled American Veteran and concerned American citizen.
"We the citizens of the United States of America have the ultimate responsibility to elect the " Right Candidate with the right temperament" to lead our nation'
Our nation is and will be facing many present and future critical internal and external challenges as well as opportunities to address those challenges.
In order to prevent any probable prolong recession and diminished world standing as the sole superpower in the world' Whether it is the moral, democratic, economic, military, and other issues.
I impress upon voters to vote after considering following " qualities and characteristics" of our presumptive presidential nominees.
In my firm professional opinion that the media should help the common voter to explore and discuss following attributes of Hon. Senator McCain and Obama:
1. Calm, cool, and collected " temper " [ Presidential Temperament ].
2. Sound and sustained "Judgment and Caliber".
3. "Thought-fullness and togetherness" of purpose and positions.
4. Minimum "ex-poser and exploitation" around "Washington and Washington insiders".
5. Renewed " Vigor and Vision " for our Great-grand Nation.
6. Foreign policy based on " American Values, Virtuous, Vastness".
7. The campaign based of facts and free of fiction, deception, seduction, and attacks.
I plead to common voter to stay informed, stay involved, and stay engaged.
Do not allow some partisan media, pundits, pollsters, and perpetual political opinion makers effect your vote in the wrong direction.
Please do not be deceived and duped by "Psychological Terrorism" that is being directed at you without your consent and awareness.
Long live U.S.A and its diverse but democratic people.
Col. A.M. Khajawall [Ret] MD., Colonel, USAR / MC Combat Stress Control[Ret], Disabled American Veteran and Iraq Freedom team.
PS: McCain would say any thing to get eleccted. Lies to attacks.
Posted by: COL. A.M.Khajawall [Ret] | August 18, 2008 10:45 AM
Remember when Reagan used to do this shit? Except he wasn't "borrowing" from someone as profound as a Solzhenitsyn; he was telling the plots of his old B-movies.
Posted by: Will E. | August 18, 2008 10:49 AM
I'm not a fan of John McCain. But.
But this is the kind of baseless parsing and echoing that leads us in destructive circles during our political debate. Mr. McCain's service and POW experience is not in question. The events that took place there are only relevant if you intend to create a vile, Corsi-style tapestry of innuendo to impeach his essential truthfulness, or his essential commitment. Neither are impeachable by honest men. I'd rather my candidate's people took the high road and lost.
The third-person description of the event is more than a rhetorical technique--which implies that it is underhanded or contrived. It's a common method to modulate an anecdote in a more formal setting, and it's appropriate and intelligent (though rather sentimental for my taste, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with it.) Furthermore the consistency of the details is confirming to me, a journalist and a Democrat. Dozens of other corroborated details of McCain's time as a POW argue for his honesty and heroism in that time. Nitpicking and rumormongering demeans the forum.
The greatest sin of modern journalism is the farcical ethic of "reporting" something and then just letting it roll around in the chatter without ruling or judging it responsibly. By mentioning it equivocally, you endorse it. Without a shred of evidence (or even any likelihood of evidence) it has been "raised". This is the signal tactic of the despicable garbage talkers of the right. It's beneath me, for one.
In my view, it's a better case for the democrat--and for the long term evaluation and improvement of the political value of military service--to compare the way the candidate's service was construed by voters, via the campaigns and the media of course. Sure, it's complicated and eggheaded, but we can't be intimidated into lowering our tone. McCain's service is offered, and accepted, as an important component of his fitness for office. John Kerry's service somehow became a liability next to George W. Bush's cavilling, smirking avoidance. Al Gore was in Vietnam, too. What weird gravity created that situation? How grossly partisan is it to view McCain's and Bush's commitment to Vietnam in the same light? (McCain, remember, is the son of an Admiral; W's father was shot down by the Japanese. W drank and politicked his way through a cushy prodigal-son ANG posting and never did a lick of the nation's work.) By giving McCain his due, we can critique the dishonesty and ugliness of the Bush choice. Large numbers of American voters, veterans especially, will understand and absorb that message.
Don't go Rove.
Ice
Posted by: ice9 | August 18, 2008 10:49 AM
"It's a common method to modulate an anecdote in a more formal setting, and it's appropriate and intelligent"
the best explanation of McCain's lie on the cross story, good one, congratulations!
as for me I lost all respect for McCain
Posted by: richCares | August 18, 2008 10:54 AM
ice9 - you have completely misappropriated your assertions. No one is denying the value of McCain's service. They are pointing out the possible dishonesty of his religious convictions and his avoidance of discussing those beliefs in a manner insisted upon by a certain segment of the population, in this case and others, by telling a parable he claims happened to him. Character does matter and is a valid criterion to judge the worthiness of a candidate. The fact that cons misused this criterion does not mean citizens shouldn't determine the character of the candidates.
Bible scholars and historians use a technique called the "criterion of dissimiliarity", to judge a story's historical accuracy. Doubt rises on whether a protaganist's claims are valid if the historian can find the same or similiar story published at an earlier date (e.g., Pythagoras counted the fishes centuries before Jesus was written to have done so, same count as well which I think was 153).
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 18, 2008 11:05 AM
ice9 wrote:
This is where you err: I'm not trying to make a case for the Democrat. I'm interested in what is or isn't true. Your argument here is self-contradictory. First you claim that it's wrong to pass on a rumor without "judging it responsibly" but, in fact, I did judge it responsibly. I didn't claim we had incontrovertible evidence against him (because we don't), I laid out the three lines of circumstantial but possibly explainable evidence. But your very next line, that mentioning it with equivocation -- which is just a negative way of saying "evaluating the strength of the evidence in a rational manner" -- is the same thing as endorsing it, is patently absurd. If I had claimed that the evidence we have proves he's lying, you'd have a point. But I didn't. You're attacking a straw man, arguing with the Ed in your head rather than my actual position.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 18, 2008 11:19 AM
Hell, I saw a scene similar to this in a movie - "The Robe" I think it was. Or one of those mid 50's Cecil B. DeMille-esque movies.
The Christian hero is being held prisoner by the Romans. One day at the table, one of the guards' assistants comes by with water, spills a little bit in front of our hero and quickly makes the sign of the cross with the spilled water. He then quickly wipes it away to avoid being spotted.
I suspect this kind of story goes beyond 1950's Hollywood to the early Christian church.
So is McCain telling the truth (whether it be about himself or someone he knew) or is he conflating his experiences with a story he may have seen in a movie or heard about? I'm sure we'll never know for sure.
Posted by: ZacharySmith | August 18, 2008 1:51 PM
The point is not to bring up McCain's service or time as a POW, it is draw attention to his style of campaign, particularly in light of his claim to want an "honorable" run for the White House. We have already seen McCain deliberately change an anecdote from his POW time - when he used the starting line of a football team as the names of his military colleagues to both protect American secrets and give his captors some information to mollify them. Unfortunately Senator McCain decided to change the football team in question - from the Green Bay Packers to the Pittsburgh Steelers - when campaigning to make himself more likeable to the residents of the Keystone state.
So with this anecdote, which did not appear in his interviews directly after his return from Viet Nam or, I believe, in his autobiography (I'm getting this info second-hand, have never read the book) we have to face the question as to whether McCain is callously using his time as a POW to gain votes and deflect discussion of the real issues.
Posted by: CPT_Doom | August 18, 2008 2:12 PM
Michael Heath:
"No one is denying the value of McCain's service."
I am.
Capt. Doom:
"The point is not to bring up McCain's service or time as a POW, it is draw attention to his style of campaign, particularly in light of his claim to want an "honorable" run for the White House."
Actually I think it is totally proper to bring it up, he does so every freakin' day in his ads and his Swiftboat pals (oh, I'm sure he "disavows" their screeds) have been going after Obama for not being a war hero.
McCain is a piece of shit.
Posted by: democommie | August 18, 2008 2:43 PM
To David you should be ashamed of yourself.
McCain talked about how the guard right after he returned from Vietnam.
This is what McCain said after he was released from prison.
"I had the singular misfortune to get caught communicating four times in the month of May of 1969. They had a punishment room right across the courtyard from my cell, and I ended up spending a lot of time over there.
It was also in May, 1969, that they wanted me to write--as I remember--a letter to U. S. pilots who were flying over North Vietnam asking them not to do it. I was being forced to stand up continuously--sometimes they'd make you stand up or sit on a stool for a long period of time. I'd stood up for a couple of days, with a respite only because one of the guards -- the only real human being that I ever met over there -- let me lie down for a couple of hours while he was on watch the middle of one night."
McCain was known by the prison guards because he was the chaplain for his comrades.
McCain was held in solitary confinement in his own cell.
To David you do know McCain is disabled from the torture he recieved. To this day he can't raise his arms to comb his hair because his arms were repeatedly snapped behind his back with rope and hung from the ceiling.
To David: McCain after three years could have left after having his teeth knocked out so liberal bloggers could make fun of his smile decades later , skin permanently damaged from the sun and arms disabled. McCain still refused to leave his comrades behind.
While injured McCain saved the life of a comrade who was wounded.
You want to talk about character lies David.
Obama copied Duval Patrick word for word in extensive passages twice without crediting him.
Obama lied about his parents meeting in selma. Obama was four at the time. Obama said this in the south to win votes during the primary.
Obama lied about his uncle liberating auschwitz. He also told this story in 2002.
McCain by the way never talks about how his 19 year old son just returned from a tour in Iraq. Another son will be graduating from the navy academy.
Liberal blogger dave is spitting and smearing McCain's service with lies.
I just donated 2,300 to McCain's campaign because I am so furious about these smears against him.\
You lefties have crossed a red line.
Posted by: Dan | August 18, 2008 2:57 PM
As a Christian (progressive/liberal), I personally did not see the story - whether nonfiction or fiction - particularly flattering or positive.
First, it implies that someone who follows the teachings of Jesus, would hold another person prisoner, and be complicit in torture and abuse. However, allowing someone to be tortured, enabling it, violates core elements of the teachings attributed to Jesus Christ.
Second, is indicates that someone who is being tortured would recognize complicity in that torture as appropriate for a follower of Jesus Christ.
To me, McCain's story declares that faith is trivial and can reasonably be expected to take a backseat to issues like torture and justice. Since many people of faith, and atheists and agnostics, have risked their lives to liberate people from oppression, persecution, torture and imprisonment, McCain's story trivializes Christianity.
Posted by: DESandberg | August 18, 2008 3:04 PM
Re Dan
Right wing fascist slimeballs like Mr. Dan crossed the line in 2004 with the swift boat attacks on Senator Kerry. I suspect that Mr. Dan didn't complain when the draft dodging, coke snorting, pot smoking, lying drunk, George W. Bush perpetrated the smears against Senator Kerry. But of course, that's the way right wing fascist slimeball Rethuglicans behave.
Posted by: SLC | August 18, 2008 3:16 PM
Err, who's David?
Posted by: Gretchen | August 18, 2008 3:20 PM
Dan blathers on about some evil blogger named David (who?) but provides nothing to support the story.
Which has nothing at all to do with this story. In fact, it cuts the other way: he was telling stories about one guard who showed him kindness, and he was talking early on about the importance of religion to himself and the other prisoners. Why, then, does the story about the cross in the dirt not appear in his early writings about his imprisonment that includes other stories about the kindness of a guard and the importance of religion? He presents it now as this huge pivotal moment in his time as a POW, a moment that gave him the strength to endure, yet he never mentioned the story until 2000 as near as we can tell.
That doesn't prove he's embellishing the story, of course, but it raises perfectly reasonable skepticism. The fact that McCain suffered greatly as a POW, something no one doubts, is irrelevant to the question of whether this story is made up, borrowed or embellished. None of this proves that he is either making up the story or borrowing it from someone else, but it does raise reasonable questions. And blathering on about evil liberals only shows your inability to think rationally; it doesn't engage the arguments made here at all.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 18, 2008 3:21 PM
Dan - when you cut and paste to a blog and you don't even bother to remove meaningless remnants like "To David:", it really cuts down on your credibility. Sort of like submitting a job resume in crayon.
Posted by: Taz | August 18, 2008 3:52 PM
DESandberg, I am curious, what is it that you believe that would put you in the category of a Christian "liberal/progessive"?
Posted by: mroberts | August 18, 2008 3:55 PM
DESandberg,
To me there are a number of things that make the story not particularly flattering or positive-- first of all that we're asked to be in awe of a couple of guys who venerated something drawn in the dirt.
Further, though, I think the implication of the story is intended to be that faith survives in unlikely places-- it is not completely squelched even in a prison guard who is complicit in torture. We need not believe that the prison guard is a particularly good follower of Jesus Christ-- just that there is some semblance in him which is still Christian, and which presumably motivated him to make the effort to give some small comfort to a prisoner. For the prisoner's part, I think we're intended to believe that he could see a shred of decency in the guard due to the guard's signal of his Christian faith.
Regardless, the story is blatant pandering to the idea that compassion is uniquely Christian and/or that Christian faith overrides all other aspects of a person's character in importance, and so for that reason I consider it rubbish. Sounds like glurge, and I can't abide glurge.
Posted by: Gretchen | August 18, 2008 4:17 PM
Many of McCain's fellow POWs are still alive and can be asked about it. Byron York of National Review (so one may or may not believe him either) called up POW Orson Swindle, who confirmed that McCain had told the story when they first met in 1971.
Posted by: Matt Springer | August 18, 2008 4:40 PM
Story originally came from: Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago"
Just a note, although a story of this kind about Solzhenitsyn has been floating around for years, it does not appear to have originated with anything Solzhenitsyn wrote and is reportedly not in The Gulag Archipelago. The Solzhenitsyn-starring version of the story in fact appears to have originated with Chuck Colson, of all people.
Posted by: Coin | August 18, 2008 4:48 PM
The Solzhenitsyn-starring version of the story in fact appears to have originated with Chuck Colson, of all people
*Rereads the link he just posted* Err, I misread the chronology there. The originator would have been not Chuck Colson, but rather Jesse Helms, who claimed Solzhenitsyn had recounted the story to him and a group of other "Christian leaders" personally.
Posted by: Coin | August 18, 2008 4:53 PM
*sigh* no, not Jesse Helms, Billy Graham. Arrgh. I'm really sorry, I'm tired today. The point is, although quite a few people have presented it as a Solzhenitsyn story over the years, it doesn't appear to stem from Solzhenitsyn except possibly as a fourthhand retelling of a lost story retold in personal conversation...
Posted by: Coin | August 18, 2008 4:56 PM
I think we can agree that raising rumors or even lies about public people, then sitting back in an objective stance as the minions bat the assertions around, then citing the existence of the chatter as proof that the original assertion has some validity, is a favorite tactic of bankrupt trash talkers like Limbaugh and O'Reilly. The original assertion disappears under a swirl of blogoscopic "evidence," getting its own weight whether it deserves it or not. IT becomes "buzz," or some such half-assed media product.
Is that what you've done? Made an assertion disguised as a rhetorical question?
You give us some pro-forma "could be", sure. So does O'Reilly. But you printed it. Does it rise to a standard of credibility? Not yet. Even if it did, I said (or tried to say), it would only matter in a tit-for-tat slime-fling with somebody half-human like Michele Malkin. McCain was a POW. He asserts that faith helped him. Parsing his story may yield culture war ammo, but I find it undignified absent compelling evidence.
In a presidential election we should be able to abide the thin components of character, like McCain's completely uncheckable anecdote. We have plenty of larger questions. In this case honorable military service (Bush senior, Gore, Kerry, McCain) vs. something less (Bush JR., his entire inner circle, Rush Limbaugh with a cyst in his ass, ad nauseum.)
Said another way: Character does not count, because what partisans wring from words is not character. It's gossip. Hence Michelle Obama isn't patriotic, Barack Obama thinks he's the Messiah, etc. Call it crap.
You may be interested in truth, and I'd certainly welcome evidence that McCain made it all up, and eat this e-mail on camera in this forum (for those who think I "believe McCain.") But I don't see any evidence worth printing. I was taught to call "Many" and "Some" "weasel words." I looked again; I don't see "three lines of evidence;" I see speculation flavored with hope. Parallels to all the history of Christians persecuted, or Solzhenitsyn, or McCain himself aren't truth, any more than Corsi's self-corroborating tissue of lies is truth. It's gossip.
As for this: "First you claim that it's wrong to pass on a rumor without "judging it responsibly" but, in fact, I did judge it responsibly...
I don't think you judged it responsibly. You called the evidence damning, then offered as support three anecdotes, two of which were thin, one of which is evidence only with deliberate misreading, and none of which will ever likely evidence out in any decisive way. You offered doubts about each piece of evidence, sure. But you printed it.
I think we should avoid doing what the right wingers do--solicit amens from their chorus, then cite the amens as a source. The man, straw or not, is the tactic of attacking the character of candidates based on the infinitesimal parsing of their own words. Parse me if you like but my opinion, perhaps poorly expressed, is that we shouldn't have to do that. They do that, we should not.
By the way, mentioning something with equivocation isn't the same as "evaluating the strength of the evidence in a rational manner." It's a rhetorical tactic--"I may be wrong, but..." that has become the fig leaf the barkers (Beck foremost) use to dress up their rantings as journalism. As in, "people are saying Ice9 fucks sheep, but I'm not so sure."
I don't like McCain, but not because his POW anecdotes have evolved or he waffled on football team codes. I don't like him because of his issues.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | August 18, 2008 4:59 PM
The bigger point in the Saturday interview regarding the cross in the dirt is that McCain used it as a rhetorical device to avoid having to discuss the orthodox christian faith he claims for himself but is continuously unable to articulate beyond a short soundbite. While the evidence he's not what he claims to be is so obvious even delusional evangelicals don't buy it, it appears to me this race is quickly coming back to the one wedge issue that's been a reliable turn-out factor for the GOP - abortion rights, as evidenced by Warren's interview that Andrew Sullivan links to today where Warren featured it in his talking points.
Even if McCain eventually admits it didn't happen to him, it will mean little relative to his position on abortion rights, which while consistent, was never in the forefront of the campaign until today. That gives the GOP two policy issues to pound home relentlessly, drilling for oil, and abortion. In the meantime Faux News will continue to lead with "Obama Nation" lies through the Dem convention at which time they should have another issue to keep the drumbeat up against Obama.
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 18, 2008 5:10 PM
Coin makes a good point that raises doubts about the veracity of the Solzhenitsyn story. So does that mean, as many have suggested above, that this is an archetypal story in Christianity? It doesn't necessarily cast doubt on the possibility that McCain borrowed it from Solzhenitsyn, of course, but it still weakens that possibility a bit in my mind. If another POW confirms that he was telling the story in 1971, that would tend to cut the other way as well. So I guess at this point I'm a little less skeptical of it than I was this morning.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 18, 2008 5:25 PM
ice9 wrote:
No, it's only what you imagine I've done because you misunderstand my purpose. I couldn't possibly care any less about creating "buzz" in the blogosphere, I'm just trying to examine the possible explanations here as objectively as possible. I think there's a genuine possibility that McCain has either borrowed this story from someone else (either from having heard it said of Solzhenitsyn or because it is an older, archetypal story in Christian circles) or is embellishing it for maximum emotional value. I'm skeptical that the story is true. I've invited my readers to weigh in on the question because there may be information I'm not aware of or possible explanations I haven't considered. They've done so. And now I'm a bit less skeptical of it than I was this morning. That's what intellectually honest people do, evaluate the evidence and the possible explanations for it. And when the evidence is not conclusive either way, as it is not here, we can only reach tentative conclusions about the likelihood of the possibilities being true. And that's all I've done. Your Machiavellian interpretation of my motives and behavior is simply false.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 18, 2008 5:32 PM
Ed stated:
I had no benchmark prior to this morning to judge the veracity of this story, I assumed it was true given how frequently McCain has used it this past year. However, I've moved in the opposite direction of Ed given the posts I've read at Andrew Sullivan's blog and one opinion placed there, which was that the best way to validate this story is to find a published quotation from McCain prior to his running for President in 2000; so far no one has been able to find anything. Given how powerful this story is, I'd be shocked if it was true if McCain never went on the record with it in a published speech/interview prior to running for President when he first encountered extreme pressure to pander to social conservatives in order to win an election.
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 18, 2008 6:33 PM
Matt Spring wrote:
"Many of McCain's fellow POWs are still alive and can be asked about it. Byron York of National Review (so one may or may not believe him either) called up POW Orson Swindle, who confirmed that McCain had told the story when they first met in 1971."
That's not what Swindle said. Swindle said he "vaguely" recalled the story and could NOT remember when he first heard it.
Given that McCain's told it so many times recently, and -- no disrespect -- Swindle's age, I'd put no faith in Swindle's so-called verification.
Posted by: Nevada AUSA | August 18, 2008 6:54 PM
Some say that we should honor what the man had to say, as well as Swindle who has deep ties within the Republican party, simply because they were POW.
If anyone wants to add honor among POW as a reason to believe the cross story, I suggest they start with their research here:
www.aiipowmia.com/testimony/
Older veterans remember well how John McCain and John Kerry shut down all further investigation into remaining MIA/POW in order to open up trade with Vietnam. They also remember how John McCain's father-in-law immediately opened up a beer industry in Vietnam.
Further, to say that McCain is above borrowing from other sources is a bit rich considering that John, not satisfied with simple theft of Jackson Browne and John Mellencamp songs, also now steals his foreign policy speeches right off the pages of Wikipedia.
"Browne filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against both McCain and the Republican National Committee on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles seeking a permanent injunction"
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/jackson-browne.html
"After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis. (Wikipedia)"
"After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises. (McCain)"
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/94652/did_mccain_lift_his_russia-georgia_speech_from_wikipedia/
Posted by: MsSwin | August 18, 2008 9:22 PM
Swindle is not telling the truth.
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.
Posted by: Deward Bowles | August 18, 2008 9:36 PM
Nobody has yet made the standard cheap shot about trusting a man named Swindle? Damn, why do I always have to be the immature guy in the room. . . .
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 18, 2008 11:13 PM
Was the Vietnamese guard in John McCain's prisoner of war story a member of the Green Bay Packers or the Pittsburg Steelers?
Posted by: AJ | August 18, 2008 11:48 PM
Well it's certainly been interesting seeing the way the issues around the permissibility of questioning John McCain's military record are shaping up. I wonder (a) how many people currently asking questions about McCain's description of his experience as a POW thought that questioning Kerry's war record in the 2004 election was offensive, and (b) how many people currently taking offense at any questioning of McCain's description of his history as a POW thought that questioning Kerry's war record in the 2004 election was just fine.
My recollection from 2004 was that I believed that presenting Kerry as a good candidate for the presidency specifically because he was "a decorated war hero" meant that questioning that characterisation was politically fair game (even though I believed, based on the information available on snopes.com at the time, that the charges against him were false). I thought that the Democrats were rather stupid for trying to push Kerry on that basis, actually.
I think that the McCain's campaign repeated reference to the fact that he was a POW even where it makes very little sense to refer to it , means that McCain has not only met the John Kerry standard of legitimacy for examining his history, but exceeded it.
All that said, I do not currently know whether the specific (and to my mind rather serious) charge of John McCain making up this "cross in the sand" story is true or false.
Posted by: Neil H | August 19, 2008 5:07 AM
Wow! Imagine depicting a cross (the quintessential symbol) to send a message pro or con about a matter pertinent to Christianity. I'll bet something like this only has occurred many thousands of times since the first century.
Posted by: Wiliam Bradford | August 19, 2008 9:05 AM
Whoa! Spit-take!
McCain is many things but he is not consistent.
In an August 19(1999) interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, McCain said: "I'd love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even-the long-term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."
Posted by: tincture | August 19, 2008 9:18 AM
Older veterans remember well how John McCain and John Kerry shut down all further investigation into remaining MIA/POW in order to open up trade with Vietnam.
Was there ANY evidence that ANY of those MIAs were still alive? Was there anything on which to even base an investigation? I should think that if they were alive, and the Vietnamese government were keeping them, they'd prove they had them in order to get whatever concessions they may have wanted for their return.
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 19, 2008 9:44 AM
Seems we are forgetting this is the same man who lied on national tv/CNN about wearing body armor during his infamous Baghdad market trip. He also said Baghdad was so safe that Gen. Patraeus rode around in unarmored vehicle.
This is also the same man who lied to his wife on a regular basis during his years as an adulterer.
Being a POW does not make you a saint or above reproach. It certainly is not a get out of jail free card when caught in a lie.
Posted by: MsSwin | August 19, 2008 10:08 AM
tincture had a spit-take regarding my claim that McCain's position on abortion over the years has been "consistent".
I searched for some context and found the following source that refers to your quote and has a follow-up with McCain: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/mccain082499.htm
I'll stand my original point given the broader context of this issue and his follow-up response. McCain's voting record has been extremely consistent in regards to his political support of the people who are anti-abortion rights on abortion. Couple that with it being extremely rare to find powerful national leaders who are always 100% consistent on this issue (how can McCain believe human rights start at conception and yet support embryonic stem cell research?), I'd say McCain is and has been staunchly anti-abortion rights. I do concede the rhetoric you found for him opened him up to potential nuance on the issue in 2000, however his voting record has always been near or at 100% on this issue if memory serves me.
I appreciate the wider perspective tincture, thanks. However, I don't believe I deserve a spit-take, I recommend reading WorldNetDaily for some authentic spit-take moments. :)
While I believe words do matter, I think we need to put all quotes from loquacious-type politicians in a broader context to encourage more transparency (which McCain was until Bush beat him in 2000). Obama might be selecting Sen. Joe Biden as his VP candidate; Biden is one of my favorite Democrats and politicians. However, I predict if nominated Biden will set heads spinning with the apparent contradictions you'll hear out of him, we'll all get some spit-takes out of him. I love Biden partly due to his transparency about what's he's thinking and see this "flaw" as a willingness to allow us to see him brainstorm in public. I perceive Biden's garrulousness as a personality trait he leverages to constantly develop his positions as he receives new information, something I value though believe Obama's methods to develop his positions are superior to Biden's methods.
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 19, 2008 12:07 PM
I think the archetypal Christian story is about wayfarers using their feet to make the mark of the fish - two ellipses, like the car Jesus Fish symbol - to identify each other.
I find the idea that a Viet Cong soldier was a closet Christian a little harder to believe than McCain is just making up another self-serving story.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | August 19, 2008 12:36 PM
Much of McCain's POW "story" is suspect and has been questioned, for decades, by those with an eye for detail. As always, when spinning a tall tale, the devil is ALWAYS in the details.
In the first place, people should understand that virtually all accounts of McCain's "heroism" in captivity can be tracked back to McCain, himself. NO OTHER prisoner witnessed McCain's interrogations. And, for almost half of the time McCain spent as a POW, McCain was held in solitary confinment with virtually NO CONTACT with other POW's.
All of this is small potatoes when one considers McCain's astounding performance while serving on the Senate Committee for POW/MIA's. John McCain has done more to perpetuate the myth that ALL American POW's were returned during Operation Home Coming than any other figure in public life. It should be remembered that it was McCain who traveled to Hanoi shortly after the war to broker a deal with the Communists to NEVER make public, tapes or transcripts of US prisoner interrogations. It was McCain who was the author of the bill that classified tens of thousands of documents relating to abandoned US POW's who remained ALIVE in captivity through out South East Asia.
Character? Integrity? HONOR???? As a Vietnam veteran, I simply cannot support McCain...and I won't vote for a feather-weight like Obama. I guess I'll sit this one out.
Posted by: MikeUSMC | August 19, 2008 1:10 PM
MikeUSMC:
Unless you like McCain please consider voting for Obama. I'm not exactly sure what makes him a "lightweight" in your view, but he's certainly not the lying pos that John McCain is.
Posted by: democommie | August 19, 2008 1:28 PM
MikeUSMC: IF you're really that pissed at McCain, you really should consider voting for Obama -- that's the best way to let McCain KNOW you're pissed at him. If you sit this one out, you and your concerns, right or wrong, will just be ignored.
PS: where is the evidence of "abandoned US POW's who remained ALIVE in captivity through out South East Asia?" If that's the case, why haven't their captors stepped up and released them, or demanded concessions for their release? Why would they keep our POWs and not tell anyone about them?
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 19, 2008 2:01 PM