John McCain loves to remind us that he was a POW and was tortured...
...yet he consistently fails to remind us that he broke under torture.
He loves to tell the story about how he lied to his captors about his squadron mates' names, giving the names of some football team's front line (which football team seems to be a matter of political expediency, however) -- and besides, what exactly were the Viet Cong going to do with the names of his squadron mates anyway? Drop by their homes and kill them? Why would they need -- or want -- that information from him? Not to suggest that McCain's story is a convenient, politically-motivated LIE mind you.
But what we KNOW McCain told his captors is the locations of US bases: information that got lots of Americans killed. Oh yeah and McCain made propaganda films for the enemy. Can you imagine the media feeding frenzy had John Kerry been captured and made propaganda films for the enemy? It would be an automatic disqualifier for the office of dog catcher much less President. We'd never have heard the end of it. John Kerry making propaganda films for the Viet Cong would have been a disqualifier for any Democrat anywhere ever to be president according to the usual media suspects. But McCain gets a pass. McCain always gets a pass.
Of course McCain tells the football story to show how tough he was. To imply that he didn't break and a lot of people are fooled by it ("He stayed strong..." warbles country star John Rich in his teenage crush ode to his hero, McCain, Raising McCain). But McCain broke. He gave in. He was weak. He Broke and gave up militarily important information to the enemy. He Broke.
Many conservatives, living in their Jack Bauer-defined world, just "KNOW" that real men don't break under torture. Instead, they make snide remarks, bleed and sweat in photogenically pleasing ways and spit in their captor's faces. They take it. They tough it out. AMERICAN HEROES DON'T BREAK! EVER. Hell, even in our comedies Americans don't break (see Richard Pryor in Some Kind of Hero: he signs his confession Jack Meoff. Ha Ha.)
But John McCain broke. He broke. That kind of ruins the entire conservative meme doesn't it? McCain broke under torture.
Now the truth is, everyone breaks under torture. It happens every time. There are things a human being just can't endure (Hell, even McCain admits he reached his breaking point: he admits he broke. Tell that to your conservative neighbor; he'll scream that it's a damned librul lie). But everyone breaks. Let's stop pretending that McCain didn't, huh? He broke. It's the simple truth.
We should remind people of this every time some McCain supporter goes on and on about how McCain's POW "credentials" somehow make him uniquely qualified for president because he was so tough and strong. Maybe it will sink in to the conservatives out there that their hero worship is based on a juvenile fantasy, not reality.
John McCain broke under torture.