Air America Radio caller had an interesting point ... John McCain was released from POW captivity

only after the U.S. negotiated with the enemy, North Vietnam ... so he owes his freedom to "the appeasers" as they would be called today ...

if politicians were as dumb then as Bush and McCain are now.

I doubt he'd be among us...!

he still might be rotting at the Hanoi Hilton.

I triple-ultra-special-dog-dare one of our fine "press" to mention it to him...

You're not meaning to imply that Vietnam still holds POWs from that time, are you?

I think what they're saying is that negotiations ended the "conflict." If there had been no negotiations, well, your guess is as good as mine or anyone else's where we might be.

The US actually beat North Vietnam into submission. If the POWs had not been released, I have no doubt that Nixon would have made a wasteland of the country. I was there and witnessed firsthand what was happening.

:eyes:

Had there not been such big protest activity and the drive towards his impeachment not happened... There was documented notes of plans to do nuclear strikes there then. If we had nuked them, then it sounds like we wouldn't have McCain around to deal with either, and who knows what the volatility of that part of the world would be like now, with nuclear fallout still being around there in addition to the dioxin messes from Agent Orange that still plague those countries today.

So in addition to him needing to be thankful for the "appeasers" to let him free, he should also be thankful for those that would seek to hold a sitting president accountable and seek to impeach when warranted probably for his life too!

Interesting assignment if you were actually "in" North Vietnam and saw the result of large scale bombing mcinane and other jet jockeys were perpetrating on the civilian population. I had been gone from indian country ( 2nd Bn., 12 th Inf. Reg., 25th Inf. Div.) for 9 years by the time Saigon fell and those beaten North Vietnamese rolled tanks through the gates of the presidential palace and I'll assert that when I left neither the PAVNs nor the VC were beaten.And yes we could have plowed the entirety of Southeast Asia with high explosives but even our criminality has its limits and I'm not sure that would have"beaten" anybody.

I'll send this to Josh Marshall.

I think the trick is to pretend to be a RWer and then pull the old switcheroo.

I heard a lady last week tell Hannity she was a repub but was mad at the party and there were three things they needed to do.
1. Stop interfering with people's personal lives (abortion, homosexuality etc).
2. Return to fiscal responsibility
3. Get the terrorists that actually attacked us on 9/11

Hannity avoided the first two points and danced around the third but it was nice hearing some almost sensible on the radio for a change. Normally, I can only listen to those clowns for about 20 minutes before my head hurts. :banghead:

all the time. some guy even put up a website once about how to get through to conservative talk shows and make liberal points surreptitiously.

Of course fast talking, double-talking, used car salesman extraordinaire Hannity would immediately confuse the issue and turn reason and logic inside out, but the seed would be planted.

Great idea.

I'm @ work listening via itunes and that nearly made me fall off my chair! what a great point! this is all going to come back and bite them in the butt.

is the problem. He's gone from "talk with anyone, anywhere, about anything" to "first I'd have someone in my administration suggest trial talks."

Sniff, sniff...

was the heads of Freepers exploding across the country.

I'm sure they'd rail against this once this little factoid was fed to them, too.

I think Obama handled it rather well. Better to use McBoosh's own words against him. Talk about a "flip flopper" that guy :eyes:

he provided them information in order to get medical treatment.

Talk about backlash.... you'll just reunite the pukes and give them another angle for their "unpatriotic" meme.

you raised the issue and what you said was wrong. I will not attack him over the "POW thing," but neither will I let misinformation go by unchallenged.

Bad idea to encourage them to really cover this in the Media I think. wouldn't end well IMO

Definitely not wise to straight-up attack McCain on this issue, but it's too good to not try to find some kind of backchannel way to make it known. For example, I would be in favor of Obama rejecting and denouncing this statement from the Air America caller. That will give it more press and allow Obama to distance himself from it as well.

Where was the backlash then?

After watching McCain in the 2000 and 2008 primary debates, I've come to realize that he uses his war and POW experience as a method of scaring people away from really pressing him on certain issues. His next favorite tactic is to make the argument that something is private and is none of anybody's business. Without those 2 cards, he is not just a subpar debater, but a horrible debater.

The best example of this was the McCain-Keyes-Bush debate in 2000. Keyes pointed out the hypocrisy of McCain's political position against abortion, yet he was in favor of his daughter having the right to choose. I think Keyes' scathing quote was something like, "How can you go into a debate against the Democrats with an argument that bestows upon your daughter that which you will deny to all other Americans?" McCain's response was that he had seen enough death in his wartime life, so he didn't need to be lectured about death. Huh? What's his wartime experience got to do with his position on abortion?

using his "war hero" status and POW experience as a crutch is not beneath him, so we need an effective way to counteract it. The McCain teams rapid response seems to be to beat the attacks into submission by raising all sorts of outrage invoking shame, etc. We need to prepared for all of this. It will get more aggressive as time goes on. We can't shy away from it, that's what they're banking on.

the sonuvabitch. Wear purple bandaids to mock his torture.

what's even better, is McCain was against torture when it was on him, but not against torture being used on others even though he knows torture is used to force captives to say anything or to admit to things that may not be true.

What John McCain did was extraordinary. Its not acceptable to try to gain political points from his outstanding service.

Don't worry, he's wrong on so many issues, that we can find legitimate ways to oppose him. But this isn't one of them.

I'd call it being reckless...as did many others about his "piloting" skills. Yes, he gains political points for being held captive (as should any former POW), but that doesn't make him a great military figure nor demonstrates any special abilities. There are those who were on the Forestall who will also take issue with his "military service"...unfortunately many of them were burned alive.

Yes, Gramps is wrong on virtually every issue, and I wholehartedly agree with the OP, that if Nixon hadn't "appeased" the North Vietnamese, his stay in the Hanoi Hilton would have gone on a lot longer. Gramps was one of many POWS...all who didn't try to cash in on their captivity.

The first day he arrived on base he saw a plane crash. The buzz around base was that it was hot shot Johnny McCain, the admiral's son. He says McCain was one of the worst pilots he ever had. If not for his old man McCain's wings would have taken away several times. He was arrogant, brash, disrespectful and broke every rule in the book. He liked to break curfew to go out drinking and get laid. He never worried about getting caught because he knew he was untouchable. Drove my FIL nuts.

n/t

Just ask America's current hostage holder. He saw not one hour of actual combat, behaved similarly and was thought of by the voting public to be the more militarily sound leader . . . over someone who volunteered more or less to be a human target in Vietnam.

but declined because not all of the POWs were going to be released.

Going back in history on this is a bad strategy, I think. The GOP will see it as swiftboating, no matter what he gave up for medical treatment or what a rotten pilot he was.

so?

And Kerry was a competent officer! McCain-- probably not!

The GOP will see any honest view of McCain as swiftboating.

I learned not to worry too much about what other people think a long time ago. If you always worry about what other people think, you never become yourself. Being considerate of others, having empathy for others are important. But worrying about what fools will think of you -- detrimental to your mental health.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire

Not quite what the poster above would have you believe, tho.

Sid

a sailor who was on board that ship and helped fight that fire. If it had been McSame's fault, this Democrat would have clearly said so.

We don't have to make up crap like that to win.

probably doesn't rise to the level of your knowledge of wet farts.

It's only fair he stays in a POW camp until Vietnam is stabilized as a capitalist country.

The North Vietnamese refused to negotiate and so Nixon ordered the Christmas bombing in 1972. That destroyed the military and economic infrastructure in North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were broken and signed an agreement a short time later.

Misread the post I was replying to - sorry.

His release did come about after negotiations, but only after American forces had destroyed most everything standing in N Vietnam during Operation Linebacker 2.

leave him there.

body that survived Viet Nam on both sides.

They would want him back? :)

:rofl:

K and R

n/t

I can't wait to hear his answer. :rofl:

...I don't think we should go there.

This is simply making a ACTUAL FACT available.
B I G difference, Huuuuuuuuge difference!

and calling bullshit when necessary. I think Obama's got a good enough response already when he says we negotiated with Russia and they were far more dangerous. and I believe he brought up the fact that Saint Reagan (rot in hell) did some negotiating too

John McCain owes his freedom to the appeasers

ha

INQUIRING MINDS...

I doubt they'd take him back.

:kick:

use McCain's POW experience against him? Are you fucking kidding?

They are just pointing out the obvious flaw in McCain's reasoning. If you do not negotiate with opponents, you cannot reach compromises. You cannot avoid violent confrontation. Had the U.S. not negotiated with North Vietnam, McCain would either still be in prison there or have died. McCain is living proof that you do negotiate with your enemies, and that you refuse to negotiate with enemies at your own peril.

because he was the son of an officer, but he chose to stay with his men? Eventually negotiation got them all released, but I wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot pole. Obama is treating this part of McCain's history perfectly - we honor his service, yada, yada, BUT . . .

It demonstrates his hypocrisy, but we already have no shortage of that.

Of Course!

After coming in practically dead last in his class at the Naval Academy, he went to war and got shot down and taken prisoner. After our government negotiated his release (by "appeasing" the enemy, presumably), he came home.

OK, great story, but where's the "heroism"?


Is mcCain a "hero" because he was tortured and survived? What other choice did he have? Suicide? Is he a "hero" because he didn't kill himself? If he had no choice in the matter, how can his survival be "heroic"? Can you be called "brave" when you have no options?

I thought heroism had to do with voluntary sacrifice for others. What kind of a "sacrifice" is being shot down and tortured? Who benefited? It seems more like a form of disgrace or failure to me, not a "model or ideal". What am I missing here?

Perhaps the key phrase in definition 2 is "in the opinion of others". If enough Republicans say he's a hero, I guess that alone makes him one!

It is often remarked that America no longer has heroes. Maybe part of the problem is that we don't seem to know what the word means any more.

Now if he were a Democrat, then your estimate would be the one the media would make of him!

Can't beleive after the purple-band-aid brigade and the trashing of Kerry's service that any Democrat would insist on taking the high road. Does that work in this country today?

Rethugs have a lot of nerve calling McSame a war hero. Then they ought to admit Kerry is one, too.

The trashing of Kerry was shameless.

too funny

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

and has almost 20,000 posts.

But and your 6 weeks of posting history have got them all figured out.

Gotcha.

Sid

how exactly?

. . .was here before there was an AAR. So, the OP can't be an AAR troll. It's just a long-timer with an opinion. You are certainly free to disagree, but calling the OP an AAR troll is disprovable by my first phrase.
The Professor

placed into the DU long ago, but triggered when a Queen of Diamonds pic is diplayed.

"zbdent is the kindest, bravest, warmest most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life"

Sid

? ? ? ? ?

and claiming you were here to try to scare up listeners because of their falling ratings.

I figured that probably wasn't the case :)

The quoted line is the programmed response of the brainwashed soldiers in the Manchurian Candidate movie, where the sleeper agent is "activated" by seeing the Queen of Diamonds.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled posting :)

Sid

that the poster can't be a covert advocate for AAR just because he's been here before AAR started. Your logic is flawed.

I'd love to see what you get right, if anything ...

I always wonder what goes on when I see "deleted message" ... what scum posted what ...

You know, the kind that are rejoicing, nominating Ted Kennedy's brain tumor for the Nobel prize for medicine ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucgg/20080519/cm_ucgg/dangerousnonsensefindsitswayintopresidentialrace

"The McCain plan of attack is to make Obama look like an Arab-Islamist sympathizer and an appeaser of terrorist groups..."

Sorry. Someone had to say it.

when I got home --- but now I'm getting Hartmann on Air America?????

Anyway, Schultz had some interesting comments ---

And --- of course --- if we're not willing to talk that pretty much rules out all diplomacy and the
United Nations!!!

May I say that Bushco is f------ Crazy --- !!!