McMegan reads questions over McCain’s potentially apocryphal Christmas story and wonders, “What, exactly, is the point of this exercise?”
It’s an interesting response. She notes that it’s an incredibly hard story to disprove, and that it’s unlikely to hurt McCain. I agree with both claims. In fact, not only do I think it’s unlikely to hurt McCain, but odds are that any further attention on his POW years helps him. But here’s the point: McCain’s time as a POW is not context to his candidacy. It’s central to it. When asked about his taste in Abba, McCain says, “I’ve got to say that a lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane and never caught up again.” When he attacks self-involved children of the 60s, he grins and says, “I was tied up at the time.” When he’s asked about his faith, he recalls a newly-unearthed — or at least long-hidden — memory of guard etching a cross into the floor of his cell. When his comportment at the Saddleback Forum is questioned, his spokeswoman says, “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.”
Does McCain deserve respect for the incredible agonies he endured in service to this country? Of course he does. But if he’s going to transform that experience into a versatile political tool — one that allows him to attack opponents, defend against all charges, and connect with skeptical audiences — then
