Republican Convention Plan: All POW

As he prepares to accept his party's nomination for president in Minnesota this week, Sen. John McCain insists he understands the economic anxieties Americans face, despite his own family's wealth and attempts by Democrats to portray him as out of touch.

...

McCain has also repeatedly invoked his time as a prisoner of war in response to recent questions about the number of homes he owns. But he rejected a suggestion that he is overdoing it by talking too much about his time in Hanoi.

"What I hear from everybody I know is that I don't talk about it enough," McCain said. "People keep saying to me, `Talk about it more. We need to hear your personal story, how you made a choice for your country when you refused to come home early.' I think that Sen. Obama has a great story to tell and certainly I don't begrudge him telling it."

In fact, the Republican convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul will showcase McCain's life story. By the time it's over, one adviser said, every voter will know McCain grew up in a military family and spent 51/2 years as a prisoner of war, turning down early release.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[dhertzfe]

McCain's Fellow POW's got the same medals he got, They upheld the "Code of Release" (First In-First Out) as he had to, many came back with life time injuries due to their treatment.

What makes him so much more special and a special hero in the eyes of America about being a POW? Many more (thousands) went through the same. I also bet some of them saw the Star of David drawn in the sand by their prison guards.

Make it clear, I am proud of all of our troops and their sacrifices in ALL of the wars. But McCain ain't nutt'in special because he was a POW.

[gtalkspolitics]

Dropping napom on women and children makes you a criminal , Killing women and children is a crime,

[smark]

I hope they plan on putting all other POWs on the stage and nominating them as well!!!

[rollingdivision]

DOVER, Del. (AP) | Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, received five student draft deferments during the Vietnam War, the same number of deferments received by Vice President Dick Cheney.

[amcg50]

You mean that John McCain was a POW? Oh well then that makes all the difference to me; I will have to vote for him now!

[Colmore]

Why did he insist that his military and medical records be sealed? He is hiding something in them, is it a mental evaluation that is not to his liking? Did he do something he is not proud of? What is in these records that he has a fear of being made public knowledge? I wish someone with some authority would question him on this, or even have them opened under the "Freedom of Information Act" or did Bush gut THAT law, too????

[rollingdivision]

Obama has refused and continues to refuse to release any of his medical records.

[robXdion]

WRONG. Obama released his medical records in early June. The MSM found he was "fit as a horse" as they put it. McCain allowed his thousands of pages of records to be viewed for 55 minutes, with no copying allowed, only minor note-taking, and journalists viewing them could not live the room and come back.

Stay informed.

[Hirnlego]

John McCain - POW Bros
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq7brOpanlY

[debrouillard]

"I have town hall meetings all over the country all of the time and I know how people are hurting," quote from JMC

He understands Americans and yet thinks $4Million will mean middle class?

[SuiginTou7]

Yeah,yeah. Noun, Verb, POW. We know already! Yada,yada yada... Is this all you have left?
Hope vs. I was a POW!!, The choice is real clear.

[smark]

Yup, yup, yup.

[newpotusplease]

st.paul rnc..i looked at the waving flags on the huge screens and the black draping and black plastic seating and sea of red and for some reason all I could hear was the Star Wars music that plays when they are showing the Death Star as the sound track in my brain.
bum, bum, ,bum, bum ba- dum bum ba dum
--or is that the music from the Wicked Witch of the Wests castle when her soldiers are marching around?

[neocon666]

What has he got left?

[AnnieinOR]

Gee, do you think God got a hold of their plans and playbook? He's had to scale back on his " I am a POW" party quite a bit.

[norkas]

There are many that suffered as pow and i feel very bad that John Mc Cain did but this will get to be old news fast and also when he uses this for excuses for how many homes he has that he could not answer it waters down the pow story. Stop now John everyone knows you were a POW do not make this a issue any longer or many of us will get tired of it fast and these statements will backfire.

[KansasMamaforObama]

Every time someone says McBush was a brave and honorable man for his service to his country, I always think they are going to break into Mark Antony's soliloquy.

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears . . . I come to bury Ceasar (McBush) not to praise him."

I hate that we show so much deference to McBush. What about all the other service men who went to Viet Nam? What about all those names on that Wall?

When I was 19 years old, my husband (a 19-year-old Marine) went to Viet Nam. In fact, every male in my graduating class, and the graduating class before me went to Viet Nam. My best friend, an only child, went to Viet Nam. Not one of these people openly talk about Viet Nam the way McCain does. Everyone of them seems to want to forget the whole experience, but cannot. Viet Nam was one horrific nightmare for those young men.

Go figure. Viet Nam--one man's nightmare, another man's campaign strategy.

[smark]

EXACTLY!! This just proves that JMc is only concerned about his own self-aggrandizement!! Talk about ARROGANT!!! He acts like he is the ONLY POW in the entire universe and that we should automatically overlook ANY AND EVERYTHING that he does and says and coronate him POTUS!!! Again, such a hypocrite!!

[Colmore]

How many other POW's have more homes than they can keep track of? How many ride around in private jets wearing $560 loafers? McCain is as phony as as Georgie. Georgie came across as a "Texas cowboy with a ranch and a drawl" all completly fabricated. John "I was a POW" McCain is not the man for the job of president, not after the last 8 years of disaster.

[debrouillard]

That goes to show you that JMC was at the Hilton in Hanoi. The people who really experience the atrocities and devilishness that took place in Vietnam dont want to ever talk or even think of it. Nothing good whatsoever came out of it,just as will be Iraq. Unless of course you are one of those elites who own military hardware companies and after war building contractors.

[NotMcCain]

And about refusing early release....

Yes, I've heard him tell it. But it IS the military CODE. that you're released in the order of "longest there"--which was not McCain.

I don't think his admiral-father would have been too thrilled with him breaking one of the basic military principles. Under the circumstances, he really didn't have very much of a choice.

Beyond that, it seems a bit disturbing to keep talking about and reveling in a terrible experience from 40 years ago. It's 2008 and he's running for President in a vastly different world (and at the age of 72, not 32).

Shouldn't it be time to move on and stop dwelling, over and over and over, on the past?

[NotMcCain]

This is purely so he continues to get a pass in the media--and so they can spend the whole week repeating what a "war hero" he is.

He was a POW 40 years ago. Oh, if only Dems had the guts to let Wes Clark raise the QUESTION of What in h*ll does that have to do with being President? And how does being a POW give McCain any foreign policy or military expertise (as he often impllies)?

Larry King is having Dems on to critique the convention--but, unlike last week's 5 night appearance in PRIME TIME by Republicans, this week his Dem show will be on.....at midnight.

McCain continually gets a pass from the media.. In fact, with a few exceptions, they utterly seem in the tank for him.

Is it just because, like Charlie Gibson, they all are so wealthy and don't want taxes raised or capital gains taxed more? Alll these mediocre broadcasters earn well over $250,000--unlike the excellent PRINT journalists. Maybe that explains some of it....