Steve Benen at Carpetbagger Report and Jake Tapper at ABC pick up on a rather astounding fib told by John McCain to a Pittsburgh TV station:
"When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the pressures, physical pressures on me, I named the starting lineup, defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron mates."
"Did you really?" asked the reporter.
"Yes," McCain said.
"In your POW camp?" asked the reporter.
"Yes," McCain said.
If you’ve heard this story before–and it’s one of the staples of McCain’s POW yarns–you know that it has always been the Green Bay Packers whose starting lineup McCain claims to have recited for his captors. In his 1999 book Faith of My Fathers, McCain wrote: "Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron."
So much for the third-rail sanctity of John McCain’s time as a North Vietnamese POW. In his own mind, clearly, it’s just another tool in an old campaigner’s arsenal. It used to be customary to tell this sort of place-tailored whopper on the stump as pols moved from town to town (check out the Huey Long anecdote at the end of this post), and no one was ever the wiser in the days before Google. Funny this is coming to light a day after McCain confessed in the New York Times that he is not really up on his computers and internets.
KDKA-TV: John McCain’s visit to Pittsburgh (2:06)
7 Comments »
Comment posted July 14, 2008 @ 7:14 am
Why do Republicans always lie but Democrats only misspeak or have a lapse of memory? Funny thing, bias.
Comment posted July 14, 2008 @ 11:57 am
Just so you know where the old Arizona senator stands on the migration issue, he told a Milwaukee crowd (according to VANITY FAIR last year) -”I think the fence is least effective, but I'll build the goddamed fence if they want it.”
Comment posted July 14, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
Why do Republicans always lie but Democrats only misspeak or have a lapse of memory? Funny thing, bias.
Comment posted July 14, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
Who cares? Of course it was a pander, and that isn't news, nor a useful insight into the McCain candidacy. Might as well indict him for kissing babies or pretending to enjoy rubber chicken.
There are plenty of reasons that a McCain presidency would be very bad for the Republic. Crap like this diverts attention from genuine differences in this election. I've (sadly, reluctantly) learned to expect the mass media to focus on dumb trivia. Please don't follow them there. Cover real issues. It's a wide-open frontier of news.
Comment posted July 14, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
Just so you know where the old Arizona senator stands on the migration issue, he told a Milwaukee crowd (according to VANITY FAIR last year) -”I think the fence is least effective, but I’ll build the goddamed fence if they want it.”
Comment posted July 14, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
Who cares? Of course it was a pander, and that isn’t news, nor a useful insight into the McCain candidacy. Might as well indict him for kissing babies or pretending to enjoy rubber chicken.
There are plenty of reasons that a McCain presidency would be very bad for the Republic. Crap like this diverts attention from genuine differences in this election. I’ve (sadly, reluctantly) learned to expect the mass media to focus on dumb trivia. Please don’t follow them there. Cover real issues. It’s a wide-open frontier of news.
Comment posted August 22, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette 7/18/08
Now this is scary
On his recent stop in Pittsburgh, John McCain said on KDKA radio that he recited the names of the Steelers defensive linemen when he was asked under interrogation for the names of his squadron mates (”McCain's Mind No Steel Trap in Recalling Steelers,” July 12). He said, “When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the pressures, the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup — defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers — as my squadron mates.”
Of course, it's untrue, and the sleaziest kind of pandering, because Mr. McCain was shot down in 1967, and the “Steel Curtain” didn't exist until 1972. He has repeated this story many times in different places, but in those instances, the Green Bay Packers were the ones who were named.
This is frightening to me, because this person is running for president, and to blatantly lie like that to Pittsburghers, to assume that they are not smart enough to notice, shows not only a complete lack of authenticity, integrity and judgment, but also calls into question his ability to govern.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment