McCain uses POW ordeal to fight housing gaffe

[sabra]

Source: MSNBC/Reuters

Candidate who miscounted his homes reflects on 5 1/2 years in captivity

BURBANK, Calif. - John McCain, who often invokes his ordeal as a Vietnam war prisoner to show his devotion to his country as he runs for U.S. president, drew on the experience again on Monday -- this time to deflect sniping over the number of houses he owns.

McCain's Democratic rival Barack Obama last week accused the Republican senator of being out of touch with ordinary people after he was unable to say in an interview how many houses were owned by him and his wife Cindy, a wealthy heiress to a beer distributorship.

In an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, McCain, 71, said his priority was to keep Americans in their homes in tough economic times.

Then he recalled his Vietnam experience.

"I spent 5 1/2 years in a prison cell without -- I didn't have a house. I didn't have a kitchen table. I didn't have a table. I didn't have a chair," he said.

"I spent those 5 1/2 years ... not because I wanted to get a house when I got out."

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26399647 /

[zanne]

1. ROFL!

He's doing to himself what the Swiftboaters did to Kerry; making his war heroism a joke.

[Binka]

2. Give It A Rest Asshole n/t

[NJmaverick]

3. he is becoming like mr 9/11

hello my name is john POW mccain. vote for me because I was a POW. I am a great man because I was a POW. POW is the Country needs today. Everyone have a wonderful POW day. I am mr POW and I approved this POW message.

[Suji to Seoul]

8. And you see how well Mr. 9/11's campaign went!

Right into the trash heap.

Keep it up, Mr. POW! Soon, we'll get sick of hearing it like we did with Mr. 9/11!!!

[liberal N proud]

4. Rattled by jingling keys is part of it

They wanted to get that out there ahead of the convention so the Democrats wouldn't do be rattling keys to represent the many houses McMansions doesn't know he owns.

[lynnertic]

7. ooo I had to work and missed this one

tell me more about the keys???please?

thxx

[liberal N proud]

12. Here is some information...

Here is a thread suggesting the keys at the convention
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Here is a thread about the McMansions PTSD and Keys
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

But searching DU you can find much more. It was topic 2 right behind the Hillary wars yesterday

[pdefalla]

19. Don't do the key thing

Many have suggested that the Republicans will say that the keys represent "Jailer's keys" and that Democrats are mocking McCain's POW experience. Let's not give him any ammo. He's burying himself and becoming a joke, let's allow that to happen.

[SharonAnn]

5. A Noun, A Verb, and "POW"

[O.M.B.inOhio]

6. He argued like the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman."

"I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists."

"Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic makes me want to get out of my BMW and run off to the hills or whatever. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine I wonder, Did little demons get inside and type it? I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts."

"But there is one thing I do know. When a man like my client slips and falls on a sidewalk in front of a public library, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages and two million in punitive damages."

"Thank you."

[Suji to Seoul]

10. He also sounds like the Anal Retentive Chef, if we're tributing Phil Hartman too!

McCain, the Anal Retentive Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer Chef!

[lynnertic]

22. The world will be saved by SNL

brilliant.

[KansDem]

9. This is embarrassing...

I mean, I'm embarrassed to read this. Like when used-car dealers use to offer "2 free liters of Coke with every test drive." Yeah, right, I'm going to reschedule my day, get in my car, drive across town to test drive a car and deal with a used-car salesman just so I can get "2 free liters of Coke"...

McCain embarrasses me in the same way...

[SomeGuyInEagan]

11. This is just sad - all he has is POW, POW, POW ...

... and is still pulling 40 points or more in national polls, which is even sadder.

[onehandle]

13. So you're fucked in the head.

Sounds like you shouldn't be President.

[Turbineguy]

14. I wonder....

Did all the other guys who were POW's get 7 (or 8 or whatever number) houses after their time?

[blublu]

15. POW/MIA

How many houses would my Buddy have now? He's been MIA in SVN since '72

[mwb970]

20. And are all the other POWs automatically qualified to be president?

Or is it just Little John?

[CitizenPatriot]

16. Victim McCain

there are other kinds of abuse going on in the world

not to be callous, but I'm sick of him throwing this around. there's child abuse, the epidemic of violence against women right in this country which results in PTSD for the rest of their lives if they live through it. there's hate crimes, car accidents, drunk drivers, rape, catastrophic illness, a terminally sick child, there's the WAR in Iraq, there's our homeless vets.......

There are so many people in this country alone who, while they haven't been to war, have experienced horrors of their own. The way he speaks about it has become insulting to me on behalf of all of the folks who have gone through their own hell. He acts like he is the only person who endured something unimaginable.

Sorry, but he isn't. I'm sick of hearing about it and I'm not going to be manipulated by it anymore. it only shows me how selfish and greedy he is -- all he can think about is himself. But then, I guess the POWs he was in captivity with already feel this way about him (edited for clarity), so it's nothing new.

Our vets now, he didn't give a crap about them! He voted against their benefits! How dare he play the victim forever and then callously turn his back on our vets. He's getting his 68,000/yr disability. He isn't homeless. What an A$$!!!!

[LeFleur1]

18. Not A POW Because I Wanted Five Houses

NO...but I think he married Cindy because he wanted five houses.
Or maybe he wanted his campaigns financed.

[thecrow]

23. Not only did he vote against Sen. Webb's Vets bill

but when it passed, do NOT forget that he and the Smirking chimp took credit for passing it!!!!!!

[Wizard777]

17. He didn't have a house when he was a POW? Then where was his Wife living?

Oh yeah, that's what he wanted when he got out. A new wife.......with 7 houses and 100 million.

[mitchum]

21. And how many houses of other people did he bomb and destroy...

before that lousy pilot got shot out of the sky?

[RedLetterRev]

26. To the rich white son of a rich white son

the huts of little brown people never once mattered. But to the real people who lived in those humble abodes, it was all the home they ever had or would ever know.

The contrast would be forever lost on someone like McKook who never had to work a single honest day in his life, never once knew hunger, never once knew homelessness, never once knew what it was like not to have neither a job nor the prospect of a job where he'd have to put in a full straight-eight, never know what forced overtime is like (or be fired), never know what it's like to have to decide whether to cut medications in half, or food in half or to do without one or the other... the list of what John McCain doesn't know and the rest of us do that makes him completely unqualified to lead us is staggeringly long.

He's never been a leader, for that matter. His whole career is one of strolling through one conveniently opened door after another, with none of them ever having been slammed in his pampered face. That's not a person who knows how to lead. That's a person who know how to follow breadcrumbs dropped by someone else.

[GOPNotForMe]

24. So embarrassing... nt

[Ian David]

25. He's depraved on acount he's deprived.

My daddy beats my mommy
My mommy clobbers me
My grandpa is a commie
My grandma pushes tea
My sisters wears a moustache
My brother wears a dress
Goodness gracious, that's why I'm a mess

[MasonJar]

27. The more he overuses that tactic now, the less impact it will have when

the going gets down and dirty. He's blowing it like Guiliani did 9/11.

[sentelle]

28. thats not the way to deal with things

When the next crisis comes, and he's asked about it, is he going to blame his being a POW?

When someone wakes him up in the middle of the night(the 3am thing) will he be conscious or on Ambien?

when asked about things during his tenure, will he ask you to ask his handlers?

Is this what we are left with for president?

No thank you, I'd prefer Obama.

[LuckyLib]

29. The entire visit on Leno made no sense. He couldn't string together a coherent thought.

No response connected to the question. But the Bushbots in the audience cheered nonetheless. Idjits!

[sentelle]

30. dont blame the audience

NBC puts a cattle prod up their asses, and forces them to laugh.

[noonwitch]

31. I am sympathetic to his POW experiences, but it has nothing to do with his wife's wealth

I'm sick of him throwing that out there all the time. He's lucky that the dems are not as disgusting as the Bush campaign in the primaries of 2000, where they said McCain had broken under torture and betrayed his fellow soldiers, and that he was mentally unbalanced as a result of his experiences as a POW.