CBS News: "A noun, a verb, and POW"

[Bluebear]

A NOUN, A VERB, AND P.O.W..... After the McCain campaign responded to yesterday's flap over the senator's untold number of homes by emphasizing his background as a former prisoner of war, I started wondering just how often Team McCain plays this card.

Perusing the last couple of weeks, I found four examples: 1) in response to questions about McCain's marital infidelities; 2) in response to criticism of McCain's healthcare plan; 3) in response to a question about the first thing that comes to his mind when he thinks of Pittsburgh; and 4) in response to allegations he may have heard the questions in advance of Rick Warren's recent candidate forum....

After all of this, for the first time, McCain is actually starting to face some media push-back.

Once a remarkable and respected aspect of his biography, John McCain stands on the brink of "trivializing" his past as a prisoner of war, which has become a "crutch in the campaign," Newsweek's Howard Fineman declared Thursday."I think they are going to it way too many times. It's the original story that defined John McCain, that still when you read it in his book 'Faith of my Fathers,' when you read about it in 'The Nightingale's Song,' you can't help but have admiration and respect for the guy. And I think he wisely for many years stayed away from it as a political tool, he really did. But now it not only defines him, it's become a crutch in the campaign. And I think he is in danger of trivializing it. By the time they get to the convention in St. Paul, there might not be much of it left to use."


It's not just Fineman. Time's Ana Marie Cox went so far as to argue that McCain's over-reliance on this is "bordering on irrational."

Greg Sargent summarized the problem nicely: "If you print too much currency, it devalues it. The McCain campaign is cranking out all these bills with a little 'McCain as P.O.W.' logo on it and is trying to use them to buy their way out of every controversy that comes along. Pretty soon the McCain team's money won't be good anywhere." Quite right. I'd just add that the hard-sell wouldn't be quite so awkward if McCain didn't go around saying that he's reluctant to talk about his Vietnam experiences.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/22/politics/animal/main4374410.shtml

[Coexist]

1. Damn!

[Solly Mack]

2. He's pissing off soldiers with it big time

[sarge43]

16. I keep wondering how the few remaining survivors of the Bataan Death March

feel about Noun Verb POW. One hour in that Ninth Circle of Hell topped everything McCain endured.

It's a shame Kurt Vonnegut left us. He would have gone ballistic on McLame's ass about this.

[Solly Mack]

17. He would have...he really would have...I believe that

[sarge43]

19. You would had to wear a bio-hazard suit to read it. n/t

[K8-EEE]

3. K&R! I really think the "POW" response to the house thing was just

WAAAAAY too hokey!

[Vincardog]

4. Sounds like the traveling propaganda machines' wheels are coming off.

[dogday]

5. Also in response when he ran for Congress in Arizona, and

the citizens of that state were saying he had not lived there long enough.. He got angry and said the longest he ever lived anywhere was at the Hanoi Hilton... That shut them up.. He plays this card a lot.... He knows people won't question his service as a P.O.W.

[LiberalFighter]

9. Heard that story yesterday on NPR

Time to question his service as a POW. Why doesn't he say much about that time? Is the perception true or does he rely on voters interpreting it themselves?

[dogday]

10. It is also not stated that all the POWS had the same opportunity

to leave as McCain did if they would denounce the US government and military, and say they were treated well.. None of them would do it, not just McCain... There are POWS who had been there longer, and were treated a lot worse than McCain, but we don't hear about them....

[malaise]

6. Looks like the POW crutch will soom be a real

slap in the face POWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
sp.

[TwilightGardener]

7. The magic has been drained out of his secret weapon, and now the media

will be hypersensitive to its use even if it's in some sort of valid context.

[Lex]

8. It's like Rudy Guliani and 9/11.

He beat it to death and then people got sick of it.

[Canuckistanian]

12. I think they got that phrase from a story on Giuliani

It's still a great line, though.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

14. They got it from Joe Biden's

crack about Ghouliani.

[Canuckistanian]

18. Oh, yeah!

That's why I like Biden. He has the best quips.

[intheflow]

11. CBS reporting what Fineman said on MSNBC.

Fineman was on Olbermann last night, that's where the long excerpt comes from. Of course, they cite him only as being from Newsweek.

Regardless, this is good that the POW card won't work much longer for McCain't. :)

[FatDave]

13. I was just thinking, "isn't that word for word what Fineman said on Countdown last night?"

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed.

[Wilber_Stool]

15. He is reluctant.

In fact so reluctant that he blocked release of records of his and other POWs and MIAs back in '92. McCain was vehemently against investigating anything to do with MIAs.
Lookie here.

[Iodine99]

20. CBS News - A Noun - A Verb and a POW

I get email from Ron Paul's Texas people. They have said several times that John McCain was a songbird in prison.

ALSO - and this is a CHARACTER ISSUE, in my opinion. When McCain came out at the Saddleback Church, I immediately thought that he knew the answers to the test. Then it came out on MSNBC that he was 30 minutes late. He said they didn't listen to the radio - but they didn't ask him about any of them having a Blackberry in the vehicle or in the room.

AND - if you go to CNN or CSPAN and listen to the first 19 minutes of McCain - at 18.38 minutes, he says
something like - Let's go back to the Supreme Court question, I want to talk about.... GUESS WHAT - the Supreme Court question had NEVER been asked of McCain - listen to the video.
I called MSNBC and CNN and also Obama's camp, trying to get this on the NEWS. I haven't heard any of them talk about it. It NEEDS to be in the NEWS. HE LIED - how did he know that question

Preacher Rick said that he had 200,000 people sending him questions to ask and then he had a lot of people who decided what to ask from the original number of questions. ISN'T IT POSSIBLE THAT just ONE REPUBLICAN sent the questions to a REPUBLICAN who gave the list to McCAIN.

THIS IS A CHARACTER ISSUE - Lying and Stealing - in my opinion
Listen to the video.

[Iodine99]

21. CBS News - A Noun - A Verb and a

By the way. Since the Republican Party is the party of the Religious WRONG - why is Rudy Guliani speaking at their convention. Oh, yeah. I guess it is because he has so many girlfriends and wives in his past that he is one of them.

[Ian_rd]

22. What Rove and Corsi did to Kerry, McCain is doing to himself ...

... turning his greatest strength into a weakness. Just like poor Ru-9/11-dy.