The Picture Of Experience (Or, McCain Goes Belly Up)

The following is from McCain’s Wikipedia bio.
“McCain fractured both arms and a leg, and then nearly drowned, when he parachuted into Trúc Bạch Lake in Hanoi. After he regained consciousness, a crowd attacked him, crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt, and bayoneted him; he was then transported to Hanoi’s main Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton”.”
Admittedly, Wikipedia has had some trouble with contemporary bios but the crowd in the photo appear to be rescuing him, probably a good thing because swimming with two broken arms and a broken leg and maybe unconscious to boot has to be quite tricky. Although it seems incongruous, they might have saved him from drowning just so they could torture/interrogate him.
Which reinforces the notion that you shouldn’t invade and occupy other countries unless you absolutely have to, possibly the most important lesson McCain MIGHT have learned from his service but apparently DIDN’T.

…McCain’s heroism and military record is largely based on his going belly up.
Homer: That Timmy is a real hero!
Lisa: How do you mean, Dad?
Homer: Well, he fell down a well, and… he can’t get out.
Lisa: How does that make him a hero?
Homer: Well, that’s more than you did!

Last time I’ll click on Bagnewsnotes. It was bad enough what was done to Kerry, my side doesn’t have to do the same to McCain.

McCain himself admitted to having committed War Crimes on 60 Minutes. He was definitely saved from drowning. That he was mistreated after the fact doesn’t erase that.
Not a hero to me.

jmac – that can of worms was already opened by conservatives. I say we swiftboat ‘em!

…McCain Goes Belly Up
You’re hitting below the belt on this one, BagMan. Taking the gloves off, are we?
From Newsweek’s Stumper, June 30, 2008, The Perils of Dismissing McCain’s Military Service:

Of course spending five years as a POW doesn’t automatically qualify McCain to take over the free world. No one–not even McCain himself–would argue that it does. There are only a few jobs, in fact, that provide direct, transferable training for the Oval Office–the vice presidency, the governorship of a large, complex state and/or military command service. Neither McCain nor Barack Obama has held any of these gigs, which means that Clark completely misses the point. Without a past “presidential”-seeming position to base their decision on, a la Dwight Eisenhower or Ulysses S. Grant, voters must instead examine all the available data points–the candidate’s positions, plans, Senate votes and personal biographies–to determine who they trust to lead the country. Hiring a president isn’t like hiring an accountant; there’s no job like the presidency, so it’s an informed leap of faith.
To hint that McCain’s searing Vietnam experience–especially his refusal to accept Vietnamese offers of early release–doesn’t tell us something about his character, his sense of duty, his determination and therefore what sort of person he is and what sort of president he would be is simply absurd. It’s not the whole picture. It’s not his one and only qualification. But, like Obama’s decision to forgo lucrative law jobs after college and work as a community organizer in Chicago, it’s an undeniably, fundamentally relevant part of our portrait of a potential leader.

Better wait until the final count: an old, experienced survivor can still ring a young challenger’s bell.