Maine Owl

He's perceived as a traitor in important quarters of the right

It could be immigration. Some months ago, McCain's wee bit more humane stance at a point in the past almost sank him for good last summer. Maybe he was seen as too soft on Terror War detainees, though he recently has flopped hard right on that one. At times whiffs of slightly more decent positions McCain may have held at one time or another on Law of the Sea, tax cuts, abortion, and gay rights are all wingnuttia-unfriendly. This post from The Carpetbagger Report traces McCain-style unprincipled pandering/flopping on many of these things.

But what really sticks in the craw of certain reactionaries like former Republican U.S. Congressman Robert Dornan can be found at the fascinating website, Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain. It boils down to they think McCain was a traitor. (See their YouTube below the fold)

Posted at http://vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/

In addition to this video, you can find out at the website about how "Presidential candidate John McCain denied that the Soviets interrogated U.S. POWs in Vietnam. But, former U.S., Soviet, and Vietnamese intelligence agents say they did" and find out the answers to "Why is McCain lying?"

Also, "A revealing snapshot of 'the real' Sen. John McCain and his ongoing love affair with leaders of communist Vietnam as contrasted to his rude, hateful treatment of families of men still missing as a result of the Vietnam War."

Dornan, sometimes in the past a sub for Rush Limbaugh, is featured prominently in the video. Is this "traitor" notion promoted by Rush's friend Dornan an underlying reason Rush repeatedly has attacked McCain on air?

The Group News Blog, carrying on the spirit of Steve Gilliard, had a heck of a post on McCain yesterday with a somewhat more sympathetic view of McCain's endurance, actions, and patriotism as a POW:

he was captured by the VietCong after his A-4 Skyhawk was shot down. His body, broken badly in the ejecting from his shot-to-pieces plane (he broke both arms and a leg) would be further savaged as they bayonetted him, shattered his arms again and again, bound him, tortured him, beat him and to sunder his mind, solitary confined him.

I don't want to even think of the nightmares this man must have. They wrecked him body and soul for five-and-a-half years?sometimes getting the mayhem up to three beating a week for extended periods of time. His spirit...would eventually give?as pretty much anyone's would under that sort of onslaught and he painfully signed a statement written by his captors agreeing with their depiction of the U.S. as an imperial, invading power, calling out himself and his fellow members of the U.S. military.

Understand that this was a third-generation Naval Officer doing this, "(dishonoring of) his country, his family, his comrades and himself by his statement."

Nonetheless, the conclusion at GNB (which coincides with my own) is that McCain as a potential president is an "immensely flawed choice, dangerously flawed, in fact". Their motif is Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

When it comes right down to it, though, as Ms. Owl quickly and sharply pointed out, when wingnuttia chooses between a traitor and either an African-American man or a white woman thought to be liberal, they will take the traitor every time.