There you go again...

Or simply, "yes, that must have been horrible- so tell me, what is your plan for the economy?"

Great analysis, Greg and thanks so much for keeping on this...

Oh, brother. The one way to destroy the "POW" card is to repeat the question, which invites a desperate repeat of that "POW" card, and makes it look like McCain's dodging the question on purpose.

Let's have a separate election and we can vote McCain in for Head POW of the United States.

I think he's running for the wrong thing.

It's a shame Clark's comments came so early. If he said that being a POW doesn't mean shit now, now that McCain's only answer to almost every question invokes it, maybe it would ring true.

Being held captive and knowing if you get out you get your home, job, wife back, is not the same as losing your home, job, family.

I know, it feels foolish to state the obvious, but we have to do it.

We can discuss and conjecture all day, but this is the elephant in the room, and has been from the moment he won the Dem. race. The media is most complicit in this, and will never go there, even encourages it I feel.

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2008/08/negrological-constant.html

And this is why the Dems make sure to put over McCain's POW days, so it doesn't become a campaign issue. McCain would love to have the Dems challenge it, but since they're not he has to keep bringing it up himself. This is why Wesley Clark was excommunicated because he "went there" and give McCain an opening, and which is why Obama, Kerry and co. hung Clark out to dry when the GOP outrage machine was in hypermode.

It's not by mistake that virtually every speaker credits McCain's service and POW heroics before ripping into his policies and what he has become. it's a concerted effort and obviously by plan.

So now it seems that the McCain campaign has to be on the air at the same time as Obama so they bought up ad time and are airing a rebuttal to Obama.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12934.html

They are leaking the name of the VP at 6 and the confirming at 8 according to Drudge.
The mind continues to reel.

Jimmy Stewart wouldn't let film studios use his service to sell a picture. My grandfather hardly spoke about his WW2 experience, as much as I tried to pry it out of him. And when he did, he certainly wasn't bragging. Can you imagine Eisenhower running around reminding people he was the General?

McCain strikes me as the guy who makes a big show of how much money he puts in the offering at church each week.

The market predictions for an Obama victory are down. Depressing since this is the Democratic convention.

Too many people are hearing the negative McCain ads. Frankly, it does not matter that McCain had primary money to spend before the general campaign. He is still defining Obama and have a fair amount of success at it.

We needed and still need to hit those policy areas highlighting McCain's lack of understanding the needs of Americans. This will force McCain to continually go back to the POW story until he looks like a clown. We need to hit the character and ethics negatives with sharp ads during the Republican convention.

Kerry's speech shows that he understands. Obama needs to wise up. What is happening now just repeats history,.

Greg nails it

This underscores again the degree to which the McCain campaign wants the discussion about the economy to morph into a conversation about character, rather than a discussion of, you know, actual policy differences.

The key is to use his "character" campaign against him.

Just because he slept on three boards in a concrete hovel for five and a half years doesn't mean the American people have to live the same way... and that is exactly what John McCain's economic policies will bring to wroking class America.

Just because McCain had to choose between violating the Code of Conduct to accept an early release or remain imprisoned and miserable does not mean that the American people should choose between food on the table or a roof over their heads.

Just because McCain was forced to endure unimaginable stress positions and emotional upheaval does not give him the right to turn the American working landscape into a prison camp where a mother and father must sacrifice their body and dignity for a minimum wage check.

John McCain can not use his personal tragedy as a fig leaf to cover his anti-American agenda. John McCain is beholden to international business interests that are exporting jobs and wealth overseas to cheap unregulated prison camp factories. This forces America to slowly abandon its principles and become a reflection of those third world nations. John McCain wants an America that is a nation of serfs and feudal lords, of prison camps, mud slides, and interminable smog.

John McCain wants to sell the American dream on E-bay.

John McCain will expand executive authority to make this happen. Coasts dotted with oil rigs until you can see more of them than stars at night. Pay checks that can not keep up with expenses. A Congress toothless agains the new Imperial purple. And so much isolation and fear that we will have to take twice the reccomended dose of anti-depressants simply to walk our children to the bus stop in the morning.

John McCain is going to turn all of us into POWs in the War on Terror.

For five and a half years, I sat in a cell with nothing but concrete floor and three boards to sleep on.

So if you lose your house (not to mention your kitchen table) and have to sleep on a concrete floor and three boards, John McCain will feel your pain.

I know some homeless folks who would love to have three boards to sleep on every night rather than their plight of nowhere to sleep and the constant fear of murder and violence against them. Where's your compassion, Johnny, for the homeless?

I just wanted to remind everyone what John "I'm Ready to be President" McCain was doing on the day Katrina hit New Orleans, August 29th, 2005:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/images/20050829-5_p082905pm-0125-515h.html

That's right, eating cake with George "Helluva Job Brownie" Bush.

Maybe that Twin Cities crack was justified.

McCain is taking his personal struggle as a POW and using it to say "I know struggle". It's a way to have voters who are struggling identify with him. It isn't unknown--FDR certainly used his experience with polio to do the same thing.

That's the reason honoring McCain's POW struggle shows Democratic wisdom. The relevant issue is what Faiz said above.

Americans are a sympathetic people. McCain has a great personal struggle story and can tap into that sympathy quickly and easily. The Democrats have to honor his struggle and point out that he remains out of touch with today's struggles. And I think this is at the bottom of the close polls. Anyone trying to make Americans unsympathetic just won't succeed. Attacking McCain's POW record is a complete waste of time and probably drives more folks to McCain than away from him.

The relevant point is if this struggle is relevant to today's struggles. FDR's struggle was a lot closer to his first election as Prez. McCain's is out of date and he's been rich for quite a long time--showing how out of touch he is with current issues and gaffes is probably best.

I think it's the reason the "which kitchen table" phrase has been working to counteract McCain's personal struggle story.

My two cents...

Poor guy. His dementia really is setting in. He forgets that he tells us this story every single day.

I'm a little tired of everybody trying to tell Obama to attack more at the convention. Obama knows specifically who he is trying to reach with the convention, probably youth, women and the elderly. I don't think a negative convention is the way to make people want to vote for him.

There is a very positive energy coming out of the convention--I'm touched by it. That is what Obama is supposed to be about and that is the convention he should have if he wants record turnouts in November. Without those record turnouts we will lose, and you can't get that by asking people to vote AGAINST McCain. They have to show up FOR Obama, because he inspires us.

If McCain admits he doesn't know about economy...
If McCain's economic adviser called USA "a nation of whiners"...
If McCain can't remember how many houses he owns...
If McCain can't define "Victory with honor"...
If McCain admits he voted with Bush "90-95% of the time"...
If McCain called Social Security "a disgrace" and wants to privatize it...
If McCain's health adviser says that E.R. access it's "universal health care"...
If McCain uses his POW experience as an excuse to every problem...

So, why some americans insist in deny themselves to choose right in November?

... the McCain campaign wants the discussion... to morph into a conversation about character...

And I'd say they want the discussion to morph into a lecture.  His testiness about defining honor illustrates that.

Economides, GREAT questions!

So, you don't think the neocons did have anything to do with the Georgia mini-war ?

The more McCain talks about his POW experience, the less it is about character and the more it is about his mental health.

P. T. S. D.

This whole POW meme has my mind reeling. It is obviously difficult for Barack or anyone to directly attack this line without seeming at least somewhat mean-spirited.

It occurs to me that this is reminiscent of the Emperor's new clothes. Everyone was actually afraid to say anything for fear of being called a fool. Perhaps some one should say that all this reference to his courageous stint as a POW points out is that there is nothing to his policies, just like the Emperor had no clothes so too are the policies bare, so who is the real fool here.

the other thing is: in what was does an average person relate to his POW experience?--they can't.
McInsane's experience is completely alien to them, and it in no way provides him with a perspective on the life of an average person.
its so extreme and exceptional, such a totally 'outside the mainstream' experience that i am surprised the McInsane's think its going to work as a bulwark against the charge that 'he doesn't get it'.
if there were millions of other American who've lived in a box in the jungle for 5 years i would understand--but there aren't.

My Father was a Veteran (Air Force)of both Korea and Viet Nam. He held a deep and abiding disgust for the pilots that were captured. He stated repeatedly that they should not have allowed themselves to be captured, in fact they had been trained to take their lives. He found McSame repugnant in the way he milked the POW story. (You should have heard him on Gary Powers!)

A true hero doesn't blow his own horn and he certainly doesn't exploit it for personal gain and recognition. My father is gone now, but I know he's not the only Vet to hold these opinions.

McSame has suckled at the teat of American Government for his entire life, literally cradle to upcoming grave. He doesn't know the first thing about average America.

McCain, what a disgusting piece of shit for dishonoring all POW’s by using his time as a POW to score political points and as an excuse to shield himself from all questions and all criticisms. He has no honor, character or shame. When will the MSM pay attention?

Max Keiland gave up half his body for this country. Wounds he will live with forever and the Bush machine managed to attack, lie about, smear and destroy this true war hero. Lets rip McCain’s face off. His time in the military is fair game because the central theme of McCain’s campaign is vote for me I was a POW. Game on.

Gen Clark was absolutely 100% correct when he accurately sited that getting shot down does not prepare anyone to be president and then villagers ran to McCain’s defense like the fire department responding to a building on fire. ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK

McCain was a man of honor 40 years ago, today he is an asshole with no sole

Being a POW only puts John McCain in touch with prisoners in jail. Does he think that American Workers are living under the same conditions as prisoners?

Maybe John McCain thinks that there are only two classes of Americans, those in jail and those who make over $5,000,000.00.

The story of McCain's early life will be "I Was a Teenage POW."

Yeah? Well, America has been a Prisoner of Bush for eight years.