Get ready for the next RW talking point: McCain's first marriage broke up because he had been a POW.

[CTyankee]

I've now heard it several times. A freeper who is in my seniors hiking group used this as an excuse when I challenged her assertion of how Bill was a serial cheater and she didn't want him near the White HOuse again. I said "Well, McCain dumped his disabled wife for a younger woman and was screwing around while still living at home with his wife." That was when she launched into the "He was a POW so that's different" defense.

I have no quarrel with the fact that being a POW can mightily screw up your head. I just didn't know it screwed up your penis as well...but apparently some people believe it has a direct corrrelation.

[madeline_con]

1. People like their delusions.

Like fairy tales that explain why there's thunder and stuff.

[gratuitous]

2. It broke up because he was a POW?

I thought it was because he was screwing the woman who became his second wife. A woman who, no doubt, keeps pretty close tabs on Straight-Talkin' Johnny Maverick.

[uppityperson]

3. He is untrustworthy because he was a POW, so he should be president?

huh.

[jedr]

4. as the republican spin their way to the white house;

we Democrats are destroying ourselves. It seems that the Presidency of the U.S. is as coveted as Bilbo Bagins ring.

[robcon]

5. I don't get it. Who cares why his first marriage fell apart?

Aren't we beyond that nonsense?

[jedr]

6. Is Obama a Muslim?

[FVZA_Colonel]

8. Was Hillary involved in Vince Foster's Death?

[CTyankee]

12. It is being used as an "excuse" for his infidelity with a younger woman.

Freepers will rage on and on about not wanting Bill Clinton back in the White House if Hillary wins and when directly challenged about McCain's infidelity, their excuse is that his POW experienced ruined his marriage.

This is a classic IOKIYAR rationale.

[AngryOldDem]

21. Because it's an issue around which our futures depend.

:sarcasm:

[NewJeffCT]

7. Since McCain is a Republican

Anything that happens before today is a youthful indiscretion.

[annabanana]

9. That's also the reason he decided to support B*sh's tax cuts. . . .n/t

[CTyankee]

14. Steering the debate back to his POW status is a clever way to stress his "hero" image as a POW.

They want to tempt Dems to debate that on its merits and we can't let them do it. Note how McCain did it on the health insurance issue after Elizabeth Edwards made her statement about his pre-existing condition!

It's totally ludicrous but I think it is a well thought out defense on repubs part. I think it is weak, but I have been wrong in the past...:scared: I would hate to see it work again...

[annabanana]

10. They say that's the reason he's sitting on all that Abramoff evidence too.. . . n/t

[annabanana]

11. But it has NOTHING to do with his temper.. ("What temper?"). . . n/t

[Medusa]

13. Actually I have no problem believing this

I had 2 friends whose fathers were POW's and both marriages ended up in the toilet after the POW's returned home.

[CTyankee]

18. I am sure that such an experience DOES have a negative impact on existing marriages.

But the repubs are using it as an excuse for marital infidelity. My argument is that if you are unhappy in your marriage, rather than sneaking around having affairs, you either seek marriage counseling or get separated and divorced so that you are free to find your happiness. Plus, doing this to a disabled wife who also had the misfortune of being older and fatter seems not to be as much a direct consequence of being a POW as it is of being unwilling to face your real problems.

[trotsky]

15. His ex-wife directly contradicts that.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter5.html

She did briefly address her divorce to Timberg (author of John McCain: An American Odyssey): "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else."

[chat_noir]

17. In his book Worth the Fighting For, McCain offers his own post-mortem on his failed marriage

He "had not shown the same determination to rebuild (his) personal life" as he had to excel in his naval career.

"Sound marriages can be hard to recover after great time and distance have separated a husband and wife. We are different people when we reunite," McCain wrote. "But my marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine."

[CTyankee]

19. Unfortunately, McCain's own words aren't used by freepers defending him. They are

excusing him on the very grounds that he says he didn't excuse himself. Why this disparity?

[chat_noir]

16. Adultery May Be A GOP Family Value In 2008

2006: "if the GOP or the mainstream media play the marital fidelity card against any Democrat in 2008, they had better be ready for an immense and unrelenting pushback from the center-left blogosphere."


http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/008013.php

[AngryOldDem]

20. Bullshit. Even McCain admits to fooling around.

But people believe what they want to believe.

[riverdeep]

22. Bill Clinton?

He's sure made a fool of himself the last couple of weeks. But what does he have to do with McCain's infidelity? How does the POW excuse work with Newt Gingrich who left his wife while stricken with cancer? Or 'America's Mayor', Rudi, who gave his wife notice via press conference?

Ask your friend if he's ever committed adultery. Chances are, he has. This fake moral outrage on Bill Clinton is a joke.

Then ask him why McCain doesn't want to release his medical records while in 2000 he was open and honest about his medical condition. Something happened in the last eight years he doesn't want anyone to know about.

[CTyankee]

24. Well, this was an older woman who was really being selectively moralistic.

If it were just her and nobody else I wouldn't be posting about this. But I have heard this from 2 other people, one of whom is sometimes a Dem voter, but has voted REpublican in some other local races. An odd mixture...

[eShirl]

23. who gives a shit?

what does entertainment-news-worthy stuff like this have to do with running a country

[CTyankee]

25. Oh, this freeper went on and on and the "dignity of the office of president" and

how awful it was that Clinton was having sex with Monica in the WH during a time when the nation's business was being conducted, yada, yada.

[Iggo]

26. "McCain's first marriage ended because...

...he was fucking women who were not his wife."

That's how we counter that argument. Simple, and to the point.