Put this POW in an Ad

by: Matt Stoller

Tue Aug 19, 2008 at 16:59


Apparently McCain's fellow POW Phillip Butler is not going to vote for McCain.  Butler was in captivity for eight years in North Vietnam, along with John McCain.  Here's Butler's piece, titled 'Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain'.

As some of you might know, John McCain is a long-time acquaintance of mine that goes way back to our time together at the U.S. Naval Academy and as Prisoners of War in Vietnam. He is a man I respect and admire in some ways. But there are a number of reasons why I will not vote for him for President of the United States....

I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

It is also disappointing to see him take on and support Bush's war in Iraq, even stating we might be there for another 100 years. For me John represents the entrenched and bankrupt policies of Washington-as-usual. The past 7 years have proven to be disastrous for our country. And I believe John's views on war, foreign policy, economics, environment, health care, education, national infrastructure and other important areas are much the same as those of the Bush administration.

Butler is one of the people who knows McCain best.  This is a potentially great surrogate who can prevent this country from sustaining enormous damage from a McCain Presidency.
Matt Stoller :: Put this POW in an Ad

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Put this POW in an Ad | 35 comments
Nice Catch (4.00 / 1)
Dugg and Reddit'ed.  
You can Digg the original .. (4.00 / 1)
[ Parent ]
I like VoteVets (4.00 / 7)
and can't wait for their ads this cycle.

ahem

John McCain opposes the GI Bill.

This guy (4.00 / 2)
needs to get on the talkshow circuit. Surely the Dems can at least manage that?
Surely! (0.00 / 0)
You crack me up.
[ Parent ]
Here's another POW topic (4.00 / 4)
Andrew Sullivan points out that McCain wasn't tortured in North Vietnam as a POW.  What he describes is not considered torture by this Administration.
The cross-in-the-dirt story - although deeply fishy to any fair observer - is in the realm of the unprovable. But the actual techniques used on McCain, and the lies they were designed to legitimize, are a matter of historical record. And the government of the United States now practices the very same techniques that the Communist government of North Vietnam once proudly used against American soldiers. When they are used against future John McCains, the victims will know, in a way McCain didn't, that their own government has no moral standing to complain.

Now the kicker: in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture. Someone somewhere cried out in pain for the same reasons McCain once did. And McCain let it continue.

These are the prices people pay for power.



John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
No! (4.00 / 1)
Four years ago we witnessed one of the lowest moments in modern American politics when republicans made a campaign of questioning John Kerry's military service.  Nothing was more sickening than to watch as republicans wore band-aids at their national convention, mocking the war injuries of an American service member who served his country with honor and distinction.

John McCain has a political history of more than twenty-five years.  Based on his politics alone, there is more than enough reason not to elect this man as president. We don't need to question McCain's military service or make an issue of whether he exaggerates his heroics.  We don't need to adopt the slime from the republican playbook to win elections.  We're better than that.  We have the advantage of having the better ideas.  They know it, and we should never forget it.

       

Oh, come on (4.00 / 4)
Read the quote.  There is absolutely nothing dishonest or dishonorable going on there.  He calls McCain a hothead, old, and wrong on Iraq, all of which is true.

Nobody is questioning this guy's service.  NOBODY!

[ Parent ]
Baloney (0.00 / 0)
You know full well what the implication is.  Throw out this little snowflake and watch as it snowballs.  Why even go there?
[ Parent ]
guts and perseverance (4.00 / 1)
If the Dems can't defend Wesley Clark, there's unfortunately no way they could deal with the blowback from taking on McCain's POW experience as a qualification for the presidency.

Of course, there would be long term benefits, but such a tactic would have required that it be deployed at the beginning of August, allowing its ill-effects to dissipate before the convention: too late now.  

[ Parent ]
agreed (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
First: This is not the same tactics they used against Kerry (4.00 / 4)
they just plain lied about Kerry. This is the honest truth from one of his long-time comrades..

Second: You don't bring a knife to a gunfight. We have lost time and time again, trying to take the high road and only discuss the issues. It doesn't work. We need a strong attack ad like this that doesn't go over low-information voters' heads.

[ Parent ]
Tactics (0.00 / 0)
Don't you think that there are some on the other side who believe that what they did to Kerry was based on honest truth from his long-time comrades?

Second: This mentality of not bringing a knife to a gunfight is the same rationale that republicans have used in their defense of torture.  They argue that we must give up our morals and all that we stand for because our enemies use similar tactics.  

[ Parent ]
Believing something is true does not (4.00 / 2)
make it so.

You believe that one or more of the following is a falsehood:

1) having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States.

2) Vietnam-era POWs have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries.

3) McCain's survival expectation is not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

4) McCain has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand.

Which ones are untrue? Which ones question McCain's service?

[ Parent ]
Believing something is true does not... (0.00 / 0)
mean that the media will portray it as such.  With all that we have witnessed in this campaign, do you seriously believe if Phillip Butler is trotted out that the media wont spin this so that it's an attack on McCain's service?  The 24hour news culture wont bother with the inconvenient truths.
[ Parent ]
So -you- don't think this is (0.00 / 0)
an attack on McCain's service. You just think the McCain campaign will claim it is, and the media will follow along?
[ Parent ]
I think this is (0.00 / 0)
an unnecessary distraction.  
[ Parent ]
What you actually said was (0.00 / 0)
We don't need to question McCain's military service or make an issue of whether he exaggerates his heroics.

Which nobody is doing.

[ Parent ]
I vote based on character (0.00 / 0)
Personally I think the lack of character among Republicans is our strongest asset in this election.

To not point out every instance in which McCain is a terrible human being would be a lapse of ethics on our part.  We would be failing in our duty to inform voters.

The liberal wiki
Send an email to terra@liberalwiki.com

[ Parent ]
You're full of it (4.00 / 4)
I don't know if you're intentionally missing the point here or not, but the point is that being a POW won't make McCain a better president. Specifically based on the 25 years in politics that you cite.

When the GOP went after Kerry, they attacked his service record straight up. They didn't even bother with the pretense of saying it impacted his capacity to serve as President, they simply ripped apart his service record with lies.

Not only is this analysis true, but it isn't an attack on character. Rather, it's an insistence that character be properly considered next to policy and political record.

John McCain opposes the GI Bill.

[ Parent ]
I wont say you're full of it (0.00 / 0)
What I will say is that I get what you're saying, and I understand the point.  But I disagree.

Hopefully you'll get my point, which is that McCain's 25 years of political service provides a multitude of reasons why he shouldn't be president.  McCain policy is the mirror image of what we've had for the past eight years.  If you want more of the same, vote McCain.  That is the message that needs to be hit home everyday.  

This can be achieved without bringing up his military service or digging up his former POW mates.  The moment Phillip Butler is trotted out, the focus of the discussion will change and the media will rehash the swiftboat saga and all the drama that comes with it.  And in the meantime, the winning message of this campaign will be lost.  People wont be talking about the disaster of the past eight years of republican rule and about Bush and Cheney and McCain and all they represent.  What they'll be talking about is swiftboating and John Kerry and Karl Rove and everything else but what matters.

 

[ Parent ]
But (4.00 / 1)
McCain is running on the premise that his record in government is secondary to his record in the military. And the media is running with it. If that absurd notion can't be dealt with, that's the ball game and we can all go home.

John McCain opposes the GI Bill.
[ Parent ]
I agree with Lucas (4.00 / 1)
Though I also respect your principled dissent in this thread.

Bottom line is: McCain is campaigning on his POW experience.  If he never brought it up, I'd be inclined to agree with you.  But he does bring it up, all the time, so it's perfectly fair to ask questions of his biggest claim, such as: how exactly is this a qualification to be president?  How is McCain different from all the other POWs who suffered the same sacrifices, and should they all be considered presidential material for it?  What's unfair is for the GOP to roll this out as his greatest asset, and then call anyone who second guesses it blasphemous just for asking questions.  That's bullshit and they know it.

By the way, I wouldn't have had any problem whatsoever with Republicans questioning Kerry's war record, if there had been an ounce of evidence for them to stand on.  Kerry ran on his war service, so it was fair game for them to question it.  The difference is that they were making shit up.  Questioning is fine, disputing accounts is fine, lying is not.

[ Parent ]
But nobody is disputing his account or questioning his record (0.00 / 0)
We're just saying that you don't get to be President, and you can't excuse naked corruption and a bankrupt ideology just because you were a POW.
[ Parent ]
Great post, Matt (4.00 / 1)
Hopefully your colleagues pick this up quickly and we can build some press.
that bush, mccain and other gop non intellectual light weights (0.00 / 0)
would even be competitive against the opposition they have and will face in general elections just shows the lack of depth and the void of moral and ethical fiber the nation has as a whole.

we are not a nation to be looked up to by anyone, just the opposite, other then having power which obviously gives us standing in the world community we are a nation that is lacking the basic redeeming qualities that we claim as are own while at the same time we criticize others for their political and moral failures.

some see america as being on a path to glory, i and others see it as a path to oblivion, for the world community and its future the later is more desirable. in the late thirties there was a cancer attacking world peace, we have become that modern day cancer and we deserve whatever consequences that political agenda brings us if we are not mature enough to stop before its too late for us and our vulnerable planet.  

this is nice, but (4.00 / 3)
this guy clearly doesn't know how to tear down a war hero and transform him into a sniveling traitor. I wouldn't be surprised however if GOP shows him how its done, personally.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
Bring him to the convention!!! (4.00 / 1)
It will never happen, but we can dare to dream, can't we?

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
Ha (4.00 / 1)
If Wes Clark can't get in the door, I can't imagine this fellow is gonna have a better time trying.

John McCain opposes the GI Bill.
[ Parent ]
Don't need to (0.00 / 0)
The convention will be about Obama, Mom and apple pie. (And baseball and jazz). The POW story is McCain-focused, so having VoteVets or other surrogates take it on, as suggested above, would be appropriate.  

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
-Lawrence Summers
[ Parent ]
It's our job to promote this (4.00 / 2)
This is a huge deal, and I will be using my public access TV program to create videos that extrapolate on McCain's sordid biography.

This is completely unlike the Swift Boats, as this is a man of complete credibility. This was bound to happen, as McCain has been exploiting his experience in Hanoi so long that it was just a matter of time before he went too far and pissed off someone else who went through a similar experience (and in this case, a worse one).

Much like with the Clark affair, I don't care how crazy the pundits get about this issue. Hell, that's what they did with the Swift Boating, and if we get them to talk about McCain's issues it's a win no matter what.

Beyond Iraq: A Time to Break Silence

This guy is different than the Swiftboaters (4.00 / 2)
For one he does not appear to be a lying sack of shit. Secondly, he is not attempting -- from the portion quoted anyway -- to diminish the nature of McCain's service or ordeal etc. He is really saying the same thing as Clark said.

But, I still think it is fool's gold. For every guy like this there are plenty of former POWs who will come take up for McCain which only keeps his incarceration -- really the only part of his life even mildly interesting -- front and center.

And, the whole "he wasn't tortured thing" is worse than fools gold -- it is a landmine.  That is just plain stupid.  

John McCain doesn't care about Vets.


That's fine .. (0.00 / 0)
what it is all about is sowing the seeds of doubt .. of course McCain will have his surrogates on(Droopy Dog and Mini-me) .. but the more it is talked about .. the more doubt you sow .. and that is what counts .. you want people second guessing McCain
[ Parent ]
he's off message (0.00 / 0)
Democrats say McCain is honorable but misguided.

This guy is more likely to be sent to the Wes Clarke reeducation camp than to be put in a commercial.

Butler (0.00 / 0)
Butler will not be used because Obama, like every other weasely dem will never, ever say anything bad about McCain's service - just see how fast they all dumped on Wes Clark.
John McCain, through his campaign/lobbyist guy and Rove, clearly goaded Georgia into a stupid war so they could look and sound tough on the teevee, and not one dem is calling him on it.
Profiles in courage? My ass.
Put this POW in an Ad | 35 comments
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