Posted on 09/13/2008 8:48:08 PM PDT by chuknchez
McCain's Right ArmBy John Batchelor. posted on September 12, 2008 at 10:05 PM
September 1968
After a year of starving and abusing 32 year old John McCain, no medical attention, abandonment and isolation in a windowless cell at the North Vietnamese Potemkin Village of a prison called the Plantation, the sadistic boss of the camp, Major Bai, called "Cat" by the POWs, ordered that the torturers break the admiral's son and force him to sign a confession. It was September, 1968. John McCain's father, John S. McCain, had become admiral of the Pacific Fleet the summer before, and the son's refusal to accept early release, and give the enemy a propoganda item, had angered Hanoi. Now John McCain the son was to pay for his resistance. The torturers started by rebreaking his left arm. Then he was trussed in ropes and beaten every two or three hours. According to the definitive Naval Institute Press volume on the POWS, "Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973," this sadism continued for four days. He resisted and weakened. Finally he signed the confession. Forty years later, this act of courage and then retreat still bothers John McCain, and he mentioned it movingly in his acceptance speech to the Republican Convention on September 4. What also stays with John McCain is the damage to his arms. When he was released in 1973, (left, returning to US care) his right arm was two inches shorter than his left. He cannot lift his arms above his breast. He cannot comb his own hair. And he is not dexterous enough to type at a keyboard.
The Obama-Biden Campaign is in Meltdown
This meltdown explains how it is possible for the Obama-Biden campaign to issue, on the eve of Hurrican Ike that will dominate the news for twenty-four hours, the most cynical and stupid of webads that attacks John McCain for not being in the economy enough to use the internet. The webad is the worst of postures-- it is snide:
"1982, John McCain goes to Washington," an announcer says over chirpy elevator music. "Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn't. He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer...
Meltdown
Perhaps the webad writers were unaware of John McCain's disability (left, at the Plantation before the torture, 1968). Perhaps they skipped the detail that John McCain depends upon Cindy McCain to type his e-mail messages. Perhaps it just does not make sense, to a campaign headed by the fresh-faced forty-something David Plouffe, that there are men walking around who have been tortured and permanently disabled by the enemy. Perhaps, as I have been told by my best Democratic Party source, the Obama-Biden campaign is in meltdown, there is no single message, there is no unity, there is no vision, and so separate but equal parts with lots of cash but not much learning are just wandering off the trail. My professionals, Fund, Ververs, Charen, Avlon, Johnson, West, Crowley, McTague, Levine and Whalen will address the strange disintegration of the Obama-Biden campaign on Sunday 14. The question will be, Was 9-11-08 the day (right, the two candidates at Columbia University on Thursday 11) that the Democratic Party panicked that Obama-Biden was not working for either winning the White House nor for holding the Congress?
No, no David Plouffe is our best friend these days. :)
I am really hoping that Rush, Laura and the others pick this up on Monday. This ad has me boiling. I’m ready to fight!
“The Obama-Biden Campaign is in Meltdown”
I will sleep well tonite.
No! Leave him alone.
If Mark Levin did on Friday eve, you can be sure Rush, Sean and the gang will blast Barry on Monday. ;)
Just drag on another, ah ... well another 6 weeks or so. Dying a s...l...o...w death.
The timing of the meltdown couldn’t be better.
Remember, though there are lots of political junkies on sites like this one, millions of undecided Americans are just starting to pay attetion to the election campaign. And they aren’t liking what they see of Obama. The first pres. debate in an election year is the most watched one. If McCain outshines Obama in that debate, that might be the beginning of the end for Obama. People’s minds will start being made up.
And with the spread of early voting and absentee voting in so many states, many millions of votes will have been cast two or three weeks before election day, which makes it harder for dirty campaigns to do an “October surprise” and influence the outcome.
Time is growing short for Obama to turn this around.
Sorry. No can do. There's no room left under the bus, except for the space reserved for Ayers. The Pouffe is going to have to stay and keep flailing around, making messes all over the place. Too bad.
Just drag on another, ah ... well another 6 weeks or so. Dying a s...l...o...w death.
a thousand or so cuts.
Get him going with a set-up about Guantanamo, and the "inhuman" practices (har!) there.
Then ask why he is in favor of more rights for the terrorists than for his opponent as President -- as proven by the fact that he used McCain's injuries from torture as a sign of stodginess, not heroism..
Then ask him about Ayers.
Cheers!
damn damn dam.. the Obamamessiah doesn’t know what hit him. they’re shooting in the dark and wailing their arms hoping something sticks. that fool Obama doesn’t crap about sacrifice for one’s country. Pack your Styrofoam Columns citizen of the world... and move to the UN.
After five years as a prisoner of war, John McCain returned home with physical injuries that would have a lasting impact. His broken arms make it painful to lift his hands above his shoulders or to use a keyboard.
Barack Obama thinks that’s funny. The guy can’t use a computer. He and his wife read e-mails together and she will key in his responses.
Barack Obama. Quick to mock...not ready to lead.
How is Davids last name pronounced?
not poofy is it ploofay?
Well, I suspect this is a situation where there are functioning units of an army that fight well but have no generalship from above.
For example, Greenspan’s comments were jumped on by someone in that campaign within just a few hours and got words put into the candidate’s mouth. So . . . don’t think they are going to roll over and die.
They have some units still fighting and those units have to be destroyed. But . . . it may be only a mopping up operation with the overall army in disarray.
Poofter?
I’m not sure that there are enough words to portray how incredibly shockingly stupid this particular attack on McCain was. I thought that the lipstick on a pig was disastrous, but Obama better get out the life preservers on this one. The storm that’s coming is going to be epochal for his campaign.
A Billion butterfly bites.
Heh I am fairly confident that Rush, Hannity, Levin, Laura and everyone else will jump on it like a chicken on a junebug.
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