"This is where John McCain was starved, beaten, tortured, and maimed for life. So the next time Barack Obama talks about one of John McCain's homes, remember this one."

and now he has absolutely know problem starving, beating, torturing and maiming for life those in the custody of the US.

"Whenever anyone brings up any legitimate policy or personal issue in the campaign that might be relevant to the 40 years of his life after John McCain was released from prison, you remind them he was a prisoner of war, once.

Methinks Admiral Stockdale is spinning is his grave.

No doubt it plays in SC but even there you have to wonder - WTF are they talking about HOUSES ...

Dr. Wang estimates it has already cost McCain 15EV's on his model

This is ok, they're blowing the POW wad on the houses gaffe. There will be more gaffes...

Who is going to be McCain's cabinet? The crew of the Pueblo?

Shouldn't they close this one with a confederate flag.

Bigger question: is it common for the GOP to run Presidential ads in South Carolina? Are they worried there too?

Frog leg,

Good question. I was thinking the same thing.

The democrats must unleash their war heros like Jim Webb, Gen. Clark, Jack Reed and John Kerry. Hell, bring out Colin Powell and Chuck Hagel and sick them on McCain.

Please, democrats you have all the opportunities in the world, do not squander them.

What? He was a POW? I had no idea. Why, that changes everything! Why does he never speak of this? I guess he's too modest.

Bush-Cheney administration: McCain wasn't actually tortured.

McCain is like the washed up old guy from Hollywood that had one hit record, or one great movie decades ago, that has lived off that one moment ever since. Since that time he has failed the character test, cheating on his crippled wife, leaving his kids, Keating Five, lobbiest favors, abandoning principaled positions for political gain, untruthful smear ads, et al. I would rather vote for anyone that did a bad thing years ago and since has lived an exemplary life, than someone that showed character years ago and since then has lived a slimey life. We are who we are today, and McCain is certainly not much to admire today.

Johnny McPOW

John McCain was a POW?

Where did you hear that?

This HOME was over 40 years ago -- if this is what McCain considers "Getting It" or "Understands What it's like out there TODAY" -- then McCain is WAY OUT OF TOUCH

FWIF, the blurring of the images on the ad to make them seem older is poorly done and looks clearly fake.

Thank god for these guys. Who would have known John McCain was a POW without them and this ad. I mean this was a great ad buy. The fact that this guy was a POW in a war fought over 35 years ago says to me he is ready for the White House. Screw questions on the economy, healthcare, the environment, etc. We just found out this guy was a POW so he is a sure win right????

Interestly, the Bush administration would disagree with at least one claim of this ad.

McCain suffered the same abuses in Vietnam as the Bush administration is perpetrating against its prisoners in Guantanamo. As we have all been told by this gang, many times, none of that qualifies as torture.

I do hope some interviewer will ask McCain to clear up this discrepancy for us.

We owe John McCain - he was a POW in the 1970s and it's our fault.

From Vietnam to Cindy, Johnny is always a kept man.

Hey CT Voter. You're on here alot, I don't post much but want to ask you and the TPM community why Republicans are so good at coming up with catchphrases and smears, that stick. You know, i get those Obama flag pin emails, and Obama is a Muslim emails. They get forwarded around the world, everyone's seen 'em. Republicans use namecalling because it is easier for the intellectually challenged or often because its an intentional way to sidestep and obsuficates the issue. They make fun of Democrats as namby pamby because we like to discuss the hows/whys and willing to listen to the other side.

So when Josh says we should attack relentlessly, does that also mean we should stoop to their level. If so, it's real easy, my Limbaugh-esqe attempt:

McCain was tortured. Many tortured people are mentally ill.

The psychological effects of torture include:
major depression
anxiety
brain damage
loss of memory
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
feelings of shame, guilt, powerlessness, worthlessness
inability to visualize the future
difficulty connecting to other people.

Give him a medal but not not the highest office in the land.

John McCain was not tortured, he was the victim of intense interrogation, not torture. His president and his MCA say so.

How are we going to get McCain to stop playing both sides of the torture card?

The next time someone brings up McStain, ask them if he couldn't protect himself in a plane how can he protect us in the Homeland?

People keep saying that good lines here should be sent to the Obama campaign -- but obviously the campaign itself isn't going to attack on this front. Who are the surrogates who could use some good lines?

I predict the best attacks against the POW theme will come this fall from Saturday Night Live.

Maybe he thinks POW stands for "President On Waitlist."

You know, this avenue creates an avenue for the Dems. The Rethugs are always accusing those on the left of trucking in "victimhood." They sneer and tell us to grow up, to get over it and be men. And now . . . the GOP standard-bearer is making his primary pitch . . . victimhood: "John McCain: A Poor, Needy Victim of the Viet Cong. Won't You Help Him, Please?" It seems like the Obama people could do a little jujitsu here to mine this hypocrisy and turn it around on them.

LMBAO!

McCain was not a P.O.W. he was a detainee in a "Police Action" and only suffered from enhanced interrogation.

Senator McCain’s constant reference to his time as a POW has become completely obnoxious.

It is bad enough when he talks about it or makes references to it himself; it is even worse when members of his campaign staff and Republican organizations use it because you have to wonder if he even knows they’re doing it.

He is allowed to wear his decorations, his staff is not.
What I find particularly disingenuous is the fact that his use of his experience as a constant excuse or shield belittles the sacrifices of all of the other service members who also fought in Viet Nam.

With him, it is all about him. Has anyone heard him talk about the rest of the military? Maybe he forgot the rest of us and he believes he was there by himself.

“A veteran is someone who, at one point in his/her life, wrote a blank check made payable to The USA for an amount of "up to and including my life." - unknown

There are very many of us that wrote that check. McCain is just one of the group. His blank check was cashed as a POW. There are many others who paid a great deal more.

2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam ( I January 1965 - 28 March 1973)

Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964

Of the 2.6 million, between 1 and 1.6 million (40-60%) either fought in combat, provided close combat support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.

7,484 women served in Vietnam, of whom 6,250 or 83.5% were nurses.

Total killed: 58,253 (including men formerly classified as MIA and Mayaguez casualties).

WIA: 303,704 - 153,329 required hospitalization, 50,375 who did not.

Severely disabled: 75,000, 23,214 were classified 100% disabled. 5,283 lost limbs, 1,081 sustained multiple amputations.

MIA: 2,338

POW: 766, of whom 114 died in captivity.

Senator McCain is just one of them, and he lived

Were McCain's ball crushed when he was a POW? Well, even if they were he wasn't tortured. You need organ failure for that.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11488.htm

sooo.... Obama pretty much has the POW and vet vote wrapped up.

LMAO - it's just ridiculous at this point...

It's sad to see how he is going to make being Vietnam POW mean so much less than it did.

The man didn't know how many houses he owned that is pathetic enough and to keep it going with this line just makes it well sad.

Just Say NO to McP.O.Dubya!

Greenwald sums up the GOP Personality War nicely:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/28/dnc/index.html

If, in fact, the polls are that close coupled with the Diebold paperless evoting machines (which should have been outlawed) we are on the verge of losing what should have been a massive landslide victory.

Someone else said this but it's the perfect place to repeat it: McCain's running for Prisoner of War of the United States, not President.

The McCain camp should be cautious about raising this issue too much because 5 1/2 years as a pow raises the issue of PTSD and general mental instability. You just don't want this guy's finger on the red button. The media has been cautious about raising this issue, but it's irresponsible not to.

What is this ad supposed to mean?...

Don't question him on any issue EVER because he was a POW.

If he can't remember how many houses he owns or what kind of car he drove last year. I sure as hell don't want him in charge of our military or our country.

The video claims that Barack Obama has asked how many houses McCain has. I do not believe that Barack Obama has had anything to say about John McCain's houses.

Get it right if you are going to try to manipulate with POW information. That gives us the reason that John McCain should NOT be president. He has a terrible temper and cannot control it. Probably from PTSDT. If he didn't develop it, he would not be human. Many fellow senators have testified to his uncontrollable temper. Not a good recommendation for someone who can start a war if he wants.

John Kerry made his Vietnam service his main issue for many weeks. Rove teed off on this idiotic strategy because you can usually find some unhappy peripheral players (not to say sick mofos) to take someone down a peg who has done something notable (Silver Star, etc.), and to accuse them of lying about it.

Now McCain is inflating his POW story into an all-purpose rebuttal, and nobody will dare attack this strategy with heavy boots because, after all, he suffered enough. Unless he is found to have lied or confabulated significantly about his POW experiences, any dissing of the POW strategy will have to be muted and indirect, something along the lines of:

"Yes, we know what he went through and we honor his resoluteness, and we also recognize that being a POW may taught Lieutenant McCain some lessons on character, but the issue is flexibility, judgment and leadership today-- so his POW experience, harsh as it was, is more than three decades old, and it is not enough. As an older and presumably wiser Senator McCain should know, a ship does not sail on yesterday's wind.

Now McCain is inflating his POW story into an all-purpose rebuttal, and nobody will dare attack this strategy with heavy boots because, after all, he suffered enough.

There is a difference between 1] being a POW and 2] using being a POW as a shameful, disgracful tactic to avoid being questioned and as an excuse for everything else. The latter is McCain's true personality and must be attacked bluntly and forcefully. (At this point, it may be too late). Drop the "honoring McCain's service" bullshit. We *all* honor that. It's a given. Drop it and move on to the real issue: he's a craven opportunist who will sink as low as to use his POW status as a sympathy card in order to get into the WH where he will wreck even more damage to an already enormously damaged country.

Problem is we HAVE all heard about this one before.

This is clever though, i'll admit. It takes any criticism of McCain's economic policy and inability to recognise the struggles of voters and turns it into attacking a Veteran's sacrifice.

The GOP are pathetic.

The GOP has no business treating McCain's ex-POW status as a sacred cow. They smeared the reputation of John Kerry, a Vietnam vet with three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star. John Kerry saved the lives of several of his fellow soldiers, while John McCain saved nobody. John Kerry actually had some military & tactical skill, defending his men ably in several firefights with the Viet Cong. John McCain only got to be a POW, because he got his plane shot down after ignoring emergency warning signals. John McCain pretended to be Kerry's friend, but he didn't lift a finger to defend the man when the deceitful, lying Swiftboaters of 2004 were dragging Kerry's reputation through the mud. John McCain's POW entitles him to no special treatment in a presidential election, and he only has himself to blame for it.

WHEN IS MY PARTY GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE REAL BREAD & BUTTER ISSUES instead of trying to push Iraq and Pow in our face Every Day??

"FLIPPER" John McCain START RUNING ADS TALKING ABOUT YOUR PROPOSALS, HOW YOU WILL PAY FOR IT without adding to our National Debt ETC!!

Source CNN Money June 11, 2008 Google Obama McCain Tax CNN Money

In real terms Obama is giving a tax cut to the bottom 98.5% of the population, under $227K/year. In the income bracket between $227K & $603K he is only increasing your tax burden by $12.

McCain is giving more of a tax cut to the top 15% of the population & Obama is giving more of a tax cut to the bottom 75% of the population, under $112K/year.

So Obama bats for the bottom 75% of the population while McCain bats for the top 15%.

The Fabulous Life Of John… MAKE IT VIRAL!!

CLICK> http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_7PfSEtiXPw&eurl=http

We don't just need a soldier. We need a leader.
John McCain is trying to elicit pity and he thinks that if America feels guilty enough that we'll give him the presidency. But America has many heroes and not all of them have the temperament and capability to be a good president. John McCain doesn't. We'd be happy to honor him with a parade, but demanding the presidency as a reward is dishonorable.

I think every soldier that spent five years in a
POW camp deserves to get to marry a rich
drug-addicted trophy wife who's daddy can give
a no-show executive position and a 50-million-dollar
fortune.

But he's a gold-plated asshat if he thinks being
a former POW or any of the money he got from his
bootlegger father-in-law makes him qualified to
be president.

I can't believe this senile old cluck, a guy who can't remember how many homes he has, is a serious contender for Leader of the Free World. McSame wants to bomb Iran, start a war with Russia, stay in Iraq for a 100 years and thinks the economy is hunky-dory. Oh yeah, and he thinks being locked up 40 years ago gives him some kind of special insight into how to run a country. Goober Pyle had more gravitas than this geriatric knucklehead.

You know, I'm starting to think that I might have been acting a bit hastily when I gave up drugs.

Its almost has bad using the fact that Obama is Black as an excuse.

How does being captured by the enemy make one a hero? By LYING that it does in order to avoid the obvious fact that he FAILED in his mission.

Now, what was that about the heroism of being a POW who calls his imprisonment HOME?

And what was that about the war crime of torture?

Ah, yes, I remember now: "We torture [alleged] terrorist [alleged] torturers in order to reduce the incidence of torture."