This seems to be coming at just the right time.

If POW becomes a late-night punchline, that's all she wrote.

... a subject that... suddenly becomes a running joke among... your late night comic friends.

Aargh.  I wanted to check out the late-night shows for humor bits from the stand-ups, but I forgot.  D'oh!

Anybody catch any of them and care to share?  Thanks!

Beware the tipping point: Noun. Verb. POW.

Paging Joe Bide, Paging Joe Biden, please report to Denver.

http://pufferfish.typepad.com

How dare you say McCain is saying POW to much... he was a POW for god sakes.

There was a huffPo article yesterday that went over some times that I forgot. McCain used it when Elisabeth Edwards challenged his healthcare plan, commenting to the effect "I know how foreign healthcare feels like", then there was the shot at Hillary Clinton and her Woodstock Museum pork spending saying "I missed Woodstock, I was tied up". Even recently McCain used it to defend his IPod list of ABBA, saying "my taste in music was stunted when I intercepted a surface to air missile with my place".

Of course then you have his campaign using it to defend the "cone of silence" issue saying you have to trust him because he was a POW, and yesterday using it to defend his many houses gaffe with the "He only had one house for five and a half years".

I'd really love to see some former POWs come out and blast him for cheapening their sacrifices for his political gain. I seriously doubt most former POWs have used their service as an excuse for mistakes or bad judgment in their lives.

And it's only August. This is one example, imo, of why we should appreciate Obama's talent for pacing his campaign, rather than tearing him down for not launching major attacks everytime McCain sees a cloud he doesn't like.

Finally. The POW overkill it's starting to get noticed. The same thing with Giuliani & 9/11.

McCain was a POW? I hadn't heard that.

Veteran to McCain: Stop Devaluing our Service

We obviously honor and respect McCain’s service and the five-and-a-half years of horror that he went through at the hands of the North Vietnamese; but it’s not an excuse for everything. He has already used it to explain away his infidelities in his first marriage. He’s used it to defend his healthcare plan. He just the other day used it to deflect accusations of having skirted the rules of the Saddleback forum.

It’s time for the Senator to stop cheapening the war experiences of thousands of vets and his fellow POWs, and his own as well, by stretching the boundaries of logic to make his POW status a wild-card rebuttal to all accusations or an answer to all difficult questions.

There's an easy explanation why the tipping point is now: I think we saw McCain go windsurfing yesterday with the how-many-houses thing.

At this rate I hope they don't announce the VP choice til Sunday - the MSM are getting worked up to a feeding frenzy right now and it's glorious to watch!

"you can't help but have admiration and respect for the guy"

Howard, get serious, this is the kind of questionless mind set that they want from us.
I know tow former POW's quite well. One turned into a sleazy ex-wife beater who milked the VA and his minor disability to mooch off the system while he sold crank.

The other is a devoted family man who works hard in his own lawncare business for the past 40 years, despite a bad hip and a negligent VA.

Being a POW is no kind of qualifier, the character of an individual is deeper than their POW story, and while it certainly has made some men better, it is no guarantee of quality.

Looking at how McCain got his start in politics by en4tering at the top, enabled and financed with his mistress-turned-wife's-father's alcohol-fueled fortunes, I also question his political bonafides.

He has never been a state legislator, or state anything, he never ran for th3e local school board or even for mayor or dog catcher, he never served on a street-level voter registration campaign.

The only street McCain is comfortable with is K-Street.

So lets not make his POW status anything to respect, in its own right.

It is the man, and not his wartime imprisonment story, that we need to judge.

P is for Pathetic
O if for Out of touch
W is for WTF?

The celeb thing has lost its legs too. It's not Obama's fault that he is popular, but it is McCrusty's fault that he doesn't know how rich he is.

I could careless about McCain's POW service.

It's scary how viciously they reacted to the Democrats ridicule of his lack of knowledge about how many homes he owned. What if the Democrats had perpetrated a serious attack? What would they have done then?

Just a week or so ago, John McCain was laughing off an attack on Barack Obama and was saying it was just a "joke". Now, when the table is turned, we get this reaction from the McCain camp. What's the matter - they can't take a joke?

The hot-headed and heavy-handed way they reacted to this story may be an indicator of how he would react in a national crisis? They came after Obama with their eyes closed and their machetes slashing whatever was in front of them. Their reaction to the Obama ad was rather scary in a way.

Meanwhile, as the abused POW card continues to lose its ability to trump, Obama gets to keep honoring McCain for his service, regardless of day-before-yesterday's tantrums by the armchair strategists.

McCain, a war hero who was held prisoner by the Vietnamese for over 5 years, has a lifetime of foreign policy experience, not including the over 5 years the war hero spent as a POW in Vietnam. John McCain, former POW and war hero, also happens to be a war hero who was held prisoner by the North Vietnamese for over 5 years.

McCain was a POW. He doesn’t like talking about it

I've made a (messy) request to start a list of all the times the McCain has used his POW past to rebut criticism in the hope that everyone will finally see how embarrassing his use of it really is.

What's important to understand is that it not only cheapens his heroism, but that of others who suffered the same horrendous fate.

Visit the post and add to the list here: McCain Campaign List of Rebuttals involving POW Past

Great stuff.

McCain has overplayed his hand.

Once the late night comics start mocking you, it's over.

The house gaffe was coffin nail #1.

Could POW-excuse as joke be next?

Wow, this is bad. Because Ana Marie Cox was such a staunch McCain supporter before all this...

McCone is an idiot warmonger, and his Rove operatives are as dumb as their leather slave master Karl.

It's time to bring back Wesley Clark. It was a mistake to throw him overboard. He was the one person speaking the truth that needed to be said, in my opinion. It could prove the fatal mistake of the Obama campaign? Do they need to see anymore about where the McCain campaign is willing to go in their attacks. I'm John McCain and I approve this message.

John McCain: He is a Prisoner of Wealth.

I think we should be careful in not going overboard attacking McCain for this. Let the media do the pushing, I mean he really was a POW and while that's no excuse for some of the crap he's pulled it's also not really appropriate to make all kinds of jokes about it (like "POW" = "Prisoner of Washington")

I know you just want to it back at the guy over his attack ads against Obama, but the point here is to win the election, not too make the other guy feel bad.

There's only one person that can make John McCain stop say POW..POW...POW...

And that is General Wesley Clark. It's too bad he was thrown overboard. He was the one person that was speaking the truth about McCain. That being, that POW status does not automatically qualify anyone for the Presidency.

Judging from the McCain attack ad on Obama yesterday, the Obama campaign may rue the day they did not keep General Clark in the stall. They attacked him unmercifully because of what he said. The Obama campaign misread it.

Good article written by a former POW on WHY he won't vote for John McCain. Good one.

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,164859_1,00.html

P.O.W, P.O.W, P.O.W. : McInane, McInane, McInane!

This is an argument for Biden. Obama needs someone with foreign policy credentials, gravitas, experience...AND...a horrible personal tragedy to take toe-to-toe with McCain and his endless maudlin tales of captivity. Biden: "Hey, John, you wanna talk suffering, anguish, pain? I'll see your broken shoulder and raise you a...." well, I'm not going to say it and neither will he, but you get the idea. Biden can and will put a cork in McCain's only claim to sainthood.

Please stop referring to McCain as a prisoner of war. He was a combatant detainee.

And he wasn't tortured. He was given enhanced techniques of conversation.

It's time for Orwell to get his revenge.

If they can keep calling him "Barack Hussein Obama", we can keep call their guy "John Sidney McCain, III" - just like Thurston J. Howell, III.

I kept expecting to see SFC in this thread, with his repugnicant trollbook....all this borderline disrespect kept him quiet i guess. but then, he surfaced. guess we'll see ya later sarge.

The mantra that McCain doesn't like to talk about his POW experience needs to be exposed for what it is.

Lets face it, beyond the POW experience, there's nothing particularly compelling in John McCain's biography. The most newsworthy event in McCain's twenty-five plus years of political life is his involvement in the Keating Five scandal. We are often told that he's a maverick, but strangely there's nothing to actually support that myth.

McCain has never provided great political leadership. He's never inspired the public to get involved. There's no eloquent speech that McCain has given on some grand issue. There's no moment in his political history where he went out on a limb to help the little guy, or some wise piece of legislation with his name on it that we all give great thanks for. How do we know these things? Because if there was a whiff of these things in McCain's past, the media would be telling us about them ad nauseam, and McCain would certainly have them in his ads.

Is there any wonder why McCain gave up so quickly in trying to present his own biography and instead has devoted most of his ad time attempting to damage the biography of Barack Obama?

"Flirting" with Giuliani-9/11 territory?? I don't think McCain is flirting anymore. I think he's knocked it up, put a ring on its finger and run off to the cheapest Elvis chapel in Vegas with it.

Hopefully Obama won't have to touch this at all - he'll let the media do it for him. But then again, this IS the famous "liberal media" we're talking about.

I was just talking to my 23-year old son (who is starting law school this semester) about the POW card that McCain is always pulling, and he said that the young people do not care about something that happened in the 1970s. I have three children who will be voting for Obama in November (18, 22, 23) and can't help but think that the polls are underestimating how many of the young people are going to turn out and vote for Obama, and the same for African-Americans. There is going to be a bigger turnout than this country has ever seen in the general. I just wish we could see Obama's strategy, but I know it is precise.

So, he can't use POW as a defense anymore and he can't call Obama an elitest anymore,...I think there done!

Good post, Greg.

What really is starting to piss me off, is how often the MSM continues to protect him, even while they are acting exercised by his POW pronouncements. Just take the last two days transcripts from the left leaning Keith Olbermann show:

Countdown with Keith Olbermann – transcript, August 20, 2008

OLBERMANN: Last point and briefly, I‘m doing this out of order but it‘s either do it out of order or ask you to wait 20 minutes to answer one question. If either presumptive nominee suddenly revealed he did not disagree with the idea of reinstating the military draft, what would happen to the numbers that we‘re seeing in the polls tonight?

TODD: Well, look—already, you would see numbers move probably among young voters, but let me just go here and give McCain the benefit of the doubt on what he might have thought he was agreeing to which is—he has been a big advocate on the national service front, as has Obama as a sort of mandatory service in some form that you see a lot of politicians take. So, it is possible that that‘s what he was talking about.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann – transcript, August 21, 2008

OLBERMANN: How many houses do the McCains have?

FINEMAN: Well, am I under oath?

OLBERMANN: Do you have a staff to get back to me?

FINEMAN: Yes.
We‘ll, we reported in the magazine last year seven; now, there are some reports on the Web of eight. People have looked through lots of real estate records and so forth. I didn‘t count them all. I‘ve been in a couple of them and I was at the ranch in Sedona, by the way, before that redo. I was there I think in 2001. There was no swimming pool. The thing that, I think, got McCain tripped up is that, I think, legally, he probably doesn‘t really own them per se, himself. When he married Cindy, he married into a family empire of, at least now worth, at least $100 million. Those houses are probably mostly in her name. So, he doesn‘t really pay attention to the details, which, in its own way, is almost more damming than knowing how many houses you have.

I read somewhere that according to the current administration policy, one could question weather he was really tortured versus just enhanced interrogation . . .

IT'S THE LOBBYISTS STUPID!

Yes the housing gaffe was pretty good and the POW bazaar should be pointed out at every occsion but did you see McCain's complete hypocrisy about the "Birds of Prey" lobbyists that he would NEVER allow to operate in his camp or in his administration. He tries to pretend he doesn't know his entire campaign is run by lobbyists and that he is every lobbyists "pet senator on a leash". Can he be that dumb or have the lobbyists been so effective that he does not realize it is their policies and positions he stands for?

This got a pass because he said it the same day as the housing comment. "Are you kidding?" should be the MSM's reaction because it is so glaringly obvious that lobbyists run McCain while he condemns them and their activities publicly. He is actually condemning himself and dems should be all over his
stupidity.

McCain would rather start a war than lose an election...even if it's only a cold war.

"He is someone who purports to campaign as a man of the people, but who resides in a whole series of wealthy million dollar chateaus and mansions," said Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt in the summer of 2004. "It's just one more contradiction and example of him being out of the mainstream with America."

Too rich AND
Too senile

The double edged sword that keeps on cutting

Since McCain doesn't like to mention his POW status, I think we liberals (being the generous lot we are) should take up a collection and buy the guy a sandwich board to wear (just like they do in front of Liberty Tax in April), one that says 'P.O.W.--but I don't want to make a big deal out of it.'

I think it would look spiffy on him at the convention.

I haven't seen anybody else mention this, but forgive me if I'm repeating a point already made in this long string.

James "Who Am I and Why Am I Here?" Stockdale was a Vietnam POW. That didn't seem to pave the way to the Vice Presidency.

Besides which, John Cindy McCain III is a double POW: Prisoner of War and Prisoner of Wealth.

MCCAIN DOES NOT SPEAK FOR THE CAMPAIGN.

OK! Now that we have all gotten totally sick of McCain as "THE POW", lets address this constant "my friend" thing.

Please old man, I am not your friend nor will I ever be your friend and if by some strange quirk of fate you manage to weasel your way into the White House, I don't want your friendship, I want your leadership.

Does this give anyone else nightmares of Tricky Dick saying "my fellow American"?

Barry Champlain @ 12:29 PM posted: "...the Republicans just might start espousing actual policies..."
Doubt it very, very much. They were given that oppotunity in 1948 (see "Turnip Day" session, May 26, 1948).
After the Republicans had spent the primaries attacking Truman and talking about all the things they were going to do (some of which Truman supported); President Truman called a special session of the Republican-controlled Congress and, basically, allowed the Republicans to cut their own throats, electorally-speaking. The Republicans refused to pass any legislation, preferring to wait until after the elections.
They said "Trust us" and the voters said "No". My personal belief is that the special session sealed the Republicans' loss in November. During his campaign Mr. Truman used their intransigence to good effect in many of his "whistle-stop" speeches.
I really don't think Republicans have learned anything since; they are certainly not acting as if they had. I also think the voters are going to respond just as in 1948, perhaps even more resoundingly.

How dare the press call out McCain, a prisoner of war, for playing the prisoner of war card? After all, he was a POW. It's not like he ever talks about it or anything. Did I mention he was a POW? While he was a POW, he had lots of time to think really Deep Thoughts about the economy, national security, and how broken Washington is, except when closet Christian Vietnamese guards (you know, the ones who were guarding all the POWs, which included John McCain, who was a POW) came out and drew crosses in the dirt in front of POW John McCain while he was a POW. Just like Solzhenitsyn, sort of, who said a remarkably similar thing happened to him in his very famous book, but it happened to POW McCain first, or something. By the way, POW McCain would never use his POW status for political gain. That would be dishonorable and unbecoming of a former POW like John McCain.

You mean that there were OTHER Americans incarcerated as POWs in North Vietnam? Imagine that!

I'm not a McCain supporter, but I don't see McCain himself using this POW line as a defence... it is mainly people within his camp. I know ultimately he licenses the POW defence and allows them to use it on his behalf, if he didn't, or if he objected to it, it would have stopped months ago.

It does offer him some immunity from criticism, particularly from vets and those who experienced the same ordeal, that he himself doesn't express having spent time as a POW as mitigating any poor judgement etc etc. But I think this is a two way street... either you talk about your experienceas a POW openly and allow the electorate to determine how they feel that shapes your personality and presidential judgement, or you stop exploiting it for political ends.

Anyone witnessing the Hannity & Colmes discussion over John Edwards affair making him unfit for public office, then immunizing McCain from the same criticism because he was a POW, while nonetheless hilarious, highlights how ridiculous this point has become.

Of course it cheapens what these men went through... when an experience like McCain's is seen as a political weapon, over an altruistic sacrfice for his country, people need to take a step back and put things in perspective.

That's the funniest Post Traumatic comment of the campaign. Loved it. And I'm a Vietnam combat vet.

It's nice to see that the MSM is finally beginning to understand that they should get their talking points from you. I mean, haven't they ever focused on the name of the site? Sheesh.

And why shouldn't they get their feed from you? They are just as unabashedly pro-BHO as this site.

And don't tell me Maureen Dowd has signed on! You mean she's proBama too? I never would have guessed!

Well, it looks like you've got it all under control. Keep up the good work.

One cautionary note, though. What if BHO only receive the support of voters who can actually define "meme"? Is that enough to win? Remember the wisdom of Pudd'nhead Wilson, who asked "Ain't we got the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a majority in any town?"

Stay tuned.

There also was a health care comment he made .. that becuase he was a POW, and didn't receive healthcare in Hanoi, he understood what lack of healthcare (for veterans) meant in this country.

The McCain (POW) camp addresses all charges and all policy through this prism, as is he is running on the "sumpathy" ticket and people should be sorry and vote for him!

There are many veterans who gave more ... their lives!

McCain seems to have capitalized on his sacrifices and come out rather well ... swapping his wife for a new model and taking advantage of connections! Becaue of his "ambition" to be president as he has admitted.