Everyone needs to take the 6 minutes to watch the video, to send it to anyone on the fence and if possible post it on your blog.
I thought I knew a lot of McCain's dirty background. Today I learned more. There is a particularly audacious bit at about 3 minutes in that says a lot about his entitlement and his flawed judgment.
He is more Bush than Bush in some ways. What a disgrace. There are many myths about McCain - this helps to clear the air.
Also - here is the link to the article- but hey, go in via Johnny Yen - what a great guy, what a great blog.
Anyway- here is an intro to the article - and the the video...
At Fort McNair, an army base located along the Potomac River in the nation's capital, a chance reunion takes place one day between two former POWs. It's the spring of 1974, and Navy commander John Sidney McCain III has returned home from the experience in Hanoi that, according to legend, transformed him from a callow and reckless youth into a serious man of patriotism and purpose. Walking along the grounds at Fort McNair, McCain runs into John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was also imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.
McCain is studying at the National War College, a prestigious graduate program he had to pull strings with the Secretary of the Navy to get into. Dramesi is enrolled, on his own merit, at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in the building next door.
There's a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain broke down under torture and offered a "confession" to his North Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn't survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service's highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as "one of the toughest guys I've ever met."
On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.
"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."
"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.
"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.
"Why? Where are you going to, John?"
"Oh, I'm going to Rio."
"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"
McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.
"I got a better chance of getting laid."
Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."
13 comments:
I had read the article, but not seen the video. Thanks.
I thought I had read the article, but there's more in it than I remember.
I hesitate getting bogged down in "character" issues when I look at political candidates, especially when it comes to marriage and divorce, but it really bugs me that McCain is the stand-in for the religious right when he apparently treated his first wife rather shabbily. No doubt he has been a faithful and loving husband to Cindy, but.... In a campaign full of ridiculous smears from the Republicans against Obama, it bothers me that McCain is held up so high by the self-righteous crowd.
For five and a half years he couldn't go to Rio.
I hesitate to ream out somebody/anybody under that kind of pressure too.
There are enough reasons not to vote for him otherwise.
Plus, I read that that guy's escape attempt cost the rest of the prisoners unbelievable torture.
So there are some mitigating factors in this.
Go Obama!
Who knows what any of us might do if we were tortured "properly," and Lord knows the North Viet Namese were surely capable of that.
But the "straight talk" about McCains roots, history and life-long attitudes belies his self-promotion as a "regular guy" with good judgment and an understanding of the struggles of the working folk.
He really ought to be as ashamed of himself as I am of him.
Thanks for posting this Fran. I had been meaning to do it.
It is an amazing piece is many ways.
Keep up the good work. We have, as of midnight tonight, 24 days to change the course of the world.
Working our asses off for that seems like good exercise and hopefully an appropriate comment to those generations behind us that have had absolute hell left in their hope chests.
We cannot, and must not, sustain that.
Breezing through without time to spend on the link right now, but thought I'd mention the discrepancy between McCain's marital circumstances and his supporters' "family values"--but klady's already handled it. Nuff said...
No wonder he and smirking chimp hate each other so much. Too much in common.
I linked to the Rolling Stone article as well the other day - this man has got to be stopped. We cannot afford John McCain in the White House.
Great story. Now what little honor McCain has he's pissing away in the election.
Good job Fran. I linked to the Rollingstone article as well earlier this week. You need to slow down, I can't keep up with all your posts. I do read them, just don't have time to comment. You are the best. I loved the barbarshop joke BTW. Toodles.
I was neutral about McCain until he won the nomination. Now I realize he's just as big a scumbag neer-do-well as Bush.
Fuck him and the beer wagon he rode in on.
The Rolling Stone article is excellent. I always knew McCain was a shitbag but this confirms it.
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