The Question of John McCain that Dares Not Be Asked

While campaigning in Florida, John McCain was asked why he was the best candidate to fix America's seriously threatening economic quagmire. His response was predictably pandering and simple-minded and empty: "Because I am a leader." John McCain's policies are, for the most part, nearly indistinguishable from those of George W. Bush, making it really nothing less than a farce for McCain to position himself as the candidate for change. And his incredibly hollow justification for why he should be entrusted to undo the economic damage that HIS Senate votes have contributed to creating brings up the question that few dare ask of McCain. So I will.

Why should we entrust the security of this country to a man who could not even save himself from being captured by the enemy in Vietnam?

It is a question worth asking and a question so open to rabid unenlightened pandering by the Right about the patriotism and respect of anyone who asks it that is entirely unsurprising that no mainstream journalist has asked it. But it is a viable question, because it raises the specter of what exactly makes John McCain a hero. I am personally not convinced that merely be captured by the enemy during war makes one a hero. However, I do believe that how one behaves while a POW can be heroic. So let's forget this nonsense that just having been captured is enough to make McCain a hero. If that is the standard by which to judge, then certainly every single soldier who faces enemy combatants is deserving of being called a hero, whether or not they actually act heroically or not. So then, does McCain's actions while he was captured and imprisoned do justice to his self-proclaimed characterization of himself as a leader, and the press' swooning depiction his unquestioned heroism?

According to John McCain's own written account, after four days of abuse following his capture he asked to see a North Vietnamese officer and told him: "I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital." McCain was eventually taken to a hospital that rarely treated POWs. Again according to McCain's own account, "Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant."

If you think McCain's own words are damaging to his idealizing of himself as a leader and the press' predictable use of the word hero in the first paragraph of anything article about him, you should hear what other POWs had to say and what government documents add to the story. Some fellow POWs imprisoned in the same place even claim that they have serious doubts that McCain was ever subjected to the prolonged torture about which he speaks. One particularly damning US govt. report shows that McCain informed his captors of the number of planes during the attack in which he was shot down, as well as vital information about rescue ships, and the order of attack. John McCain's willingness to share secrets with the North Vietnamese certainly lends credence to his stories about torture. And it may even make his confessions justifiable in light of the fact that so many other prisoners did the same thing.

Except that so many more didn't. According to reports from other prisoners where McCain was kept, those POWs who did provide accurate and detailed information were a small minority. Most, in fact, refused to cooperate or else provided misleading information, even under extreme torture. The difference, it would seem, is one that is normally used to characterize qualities such as leadership.

Of course, there is a vast difference between being a leader and a traitor. I wouldn't go so far, as some have done, to label McCain a traitor. If he truly was tortured, his willingness to hand over information to his captors to preserve life is completely understandable. What is less understandable is why McCain has taken to claiming that he never handed over any information to the North Vietnamese. He's either lying nor, or he was lying when he wrote that he had. Perhaps his close associated with George W. Bush has convinced John McCain that the words liar and leader both have the same root origin.