Everything He Learned?

If there are any Chief Petty Officers in the debate audience this evening, word-to-the-wise, keep a low profile.

As you may recall, at the last Presidential Debate, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McKKKain got a lucky roll-of-the-dice, when one of the audience questioners happened to be a serviceman, a Navy man, a Chief Petty Officer.

Transcript of second McCain, Obama debate

Well, thank you, Terry (ph). And thank you for your service to the country.

I want to say, everything I ever learned about leadership I learned from a chief petty officer. And I thank you, and I thank you, my friend. Thanks for serving.

Perhaps Chief Petty Officer Terry hadn't see the newspaper, the Los Angeles Times that day, or likely he would have had a rebuttal for for the debunked Maverick, maybe a different question, for I don't think he want to own that for the legion of Chief Petty Officers out there, past and present.

Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator; Three crashes early in his career led Navy officials to question or fault his judgment

As a presidential candidate, McCain has cited his military service -- particularly his 5 1/2 years as a POW. But he has been less forthcoming about his mistakes in the cockpit.

In today's military, a lapse in judgment that causes a crash can end a pilot's career. Though standards were looser and crashes more frequent in the 1960s, McCain's record stands out.

Naval aviation experts say the three accidents before McCain's deployment to Vietnam probably triggered a review to determine whether he should be allowed to continue flying. The results of the review would have been confidential.

The Times asked McCain's campaign to release any military personnel records in the candidate's possession showing how the Navy handled the three incidents. The campaign said it would have no comment.

If may be safe to say, that if it were not for Fly Boy having a Dad and Grandfather that were big muckity-mucks in the Navy, perhaps McKKKain may have had a career in KP duty, if not drubbed out of the service completely.

You look at this article, the record of crashes, and you can see that things haven't changed much.

It's now his campaign that he's driving into the ground.


Bonus Clyde Crashcup Riffs

Quincy Adams: McCain's judment and veracity as an aviator

Melissa McEwan: Crash Bandicoot

Libby Spencer: Things I learned from Atriots

Ted Rall: Puffing up John McCain, POW

Lowell: George McGovern takes a "dig" at John McCain

Top Ten Cloves: Things About If John McCain and Sarah Palin Discovered America

News Item: Columbus Day Holiday

10. Selection of unknown, and inexperienced, First Mate Sarah Palin would have rippled through Spain

9. Name of Ships - Straight Ship Express, Country First and Maverick (And, he had, at least four other ships)

8. McCain would have been criticized by other navigators and explorers as too old to be making expedition

7. First bit of a little rough seas, McCain would "suspend" the voyage (but not really)

6. McCain's special advisor for voyage, Phil Gramm, causes a stir, calling ship's crew a bunch of whiners

5. Weeks lost at sea due to following coordinates for legendary "The Bridge To Nowhere"

4. Cindy McCain (her family money funded McCain's voyages) irritating ship's cook, stealing his recipes and claiming them as her own

3. Hanoi Hilton didn't exist yet, so, no POW-POW-POW stories for McCain

2. Palin, and husband Todd, cause controversy the entire voyage, incessantly trying to get ship's Master-at-Arms fired

1. Native Americans would be known as today, Native MyFriends

Here's Where Time Magazine Screwed Up

Much buzz going on, out on the World Wide Web, over an interview conducted by Time Magazine's James Carney and Michael Scherer, of Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain.

On board the Dead Campaign Express, they describe the Fly Boy from Arizona as "prickly"

It was on the 13th question (or exchange) that their fatal error occurred;

Jumping around a bit: in your books, you've talked about what it was like to go through the Keating Five experience, and you've been quoted as saying it was one of the worst experiences of your life. Someone else quoted you as saying it was even worse than being a POW ...

That's another one of those statements made 17 or 18 years ago which was out of the context of the conversation I was having. Of course the worst, the toughest experience of my life was being imprisoned, so people can pluck phrases from 17 or 18 years ago ...

I wasn't suggesting it as a negative thing. I was just saying that ...

I'm just suggesting it was taken out of context. I understand how comments are taken out of context from time to time. But obviously, the toughest time of my life, physically and [in] every other way, would be the time that I almost died in prison camp. And I think most Americans understand that.

Do you see it? ... Can you spot it?

They asked, directly, a question of him about his POW-POW-POW status.

You would have thought that two veteran reporters would have caught on by now.

If you ask him directly, he has nowhere to go with it.

He needs something else, anything else, in which to trigger the POW-POW-POW stuff ...

It's been clear, for some time, that anything can be the Manchurian Candidate Queen-of-Diamonds for Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny, and his POW-POW-POW stories, but never, never a direct question about it.

Ask'em if he heard the questions, or cheated, at the Saddleback Show... BANG, you get the the POW-POW-POW.

Make a joke about him forgetting how many houses he has ... BANG, you get the POW-POW-POW.

Ask him directly (and offered a million dollars) how many houses he owns ... BANG, you get the POW-POW-POW.

Besides, The Garlic already exposed what's going on with the POW-POW-POW thing, in our Mas Que Nada ... McCain Goes Pow Pow Pow - Again! Or: Donate To John McCain, and Be Included In The Telling of His Next POW-POW-POW Story;

Not only that, but he's added a "fish story" element to it, an umbrella of sorts, extending the magic POW-POW-POW powers to his father-in-law.

I think he's on to something here, that, maybe, he shouldn't have let out of the bag like that ...

Fundraisng!

We know he's been living, high-off-the-hog, on Cindy, her Daddy's scratch, but why settle for that?.

The Rove Rats, and Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain Campaign's next step can be to offer, for a certain-level donation, that "Senator McCain will include you in his next telling of his POW-POW-POW experience.

Christ, they let loose with that, and it will make Obama's prodigious fundraising look like lunch money.

NeoNitWits and jingoistic jackasses will come out of the woodwork, cash-in-hand, lapping it up like happy soup.

A little more than two-months left of campaigning, a POW-POW-POW story, a day (hey, you don't want to dilute it, after all) ... Charging a premium if he does it in an interview, national media, versus local ... Cable news versus network news ... Newspaper or magazine ...

This Time Magazine interview shows how well the Rove Rats have programmed him.

Who knew, they had a "Cone of Silence" on the Dead Campaign Express?

Media, be warned, he might give a little taste, now-and-then, but he's not going to give the POW-POW-POW cow away for free any longer.

Jeepers ... Time Magazine ... And they couldn't figure that out ....Or come up with some big bucks (or a box of donuts) to pay for it?


Bonus Stumblin' Bumblin Here's Johnny Riffs

The Ultimate McCain POW Song

Brilliant at Breakfast: John McCain = 4 more years of secretive, unaccountable government

Wonkette: Nasty McCain Now Just Yelling At People To Buy His Books

Steve Benen: THE PRICKLY TALK EXPRESS...

No More Mister Nice Blog: THE DON'T GET SUCKED IN -- HE'S FAKING IT

Greg Sargent: Prickly McCain Refuses To Define "Honor" In Interview

Think Progress - McCain: Iraq is ‘A Peaceful And Stable Country Now’

Mas Que Nada ... McCain Goes Pow Pow Pow - Again!

Or: Donate To John McCain, and Be Included In The Telling of His Next POW-POW-POW Story

We told you so ...

In our post Sunday, "The Ultimate McCain POW Song", we said it would come again ("don't worry, it will be soon, very soon").

And, we didn't have to worry, or to wait much more than, roughly, 24-hours.

Hit with 'houses' on Leno, McCain cites POW experience and more

LENO: Welcome back, Sen. McCain, for one million dollars, how many houses do you have? (Jay laughs, McCain squirms and chuckles)

MCCAIN: You know, could I just mention to you, Jay, and a moment of seriousness. I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, without—I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair. And I spent those five and a half years, because—not because I wanted to get a house when I got out. And you know, I’m very proud of Cindy’s father, he was a guy that barely got out of high school, fought in World War II in the Army Air Corps, came home and made a business and made the American dream and so somehow. You’ve had Cindy on this show ...

We spend our time in a condominium in Washington, a condominium in Phoenix, some time over here in the state of California, and then we have a place up in northern Arizona,’’ he said. And my friends, I’m proud of my record of service to this country, and it has nothing to do with houses. What it has to do with putting Americans in houses and keeping them in their homes.’

Jesus ...

In a softball setting like 'The Tonight Show', rather than banter, or shoot back a zinger to Leno, he stumbles and bumbles into robot-mode with the POW-POW-POW bullshit.

Not only that, but he's added a "fish story" element to it, an umbrella of sorts, extending the magic POW-POW-POW powers to his father-in-law.

I think he's on to something here, that, maybe, he shouldn't have let out of the bag like that ...

Fundraising!

We know he's been living, high-off-the-hog, on Cindy, her Daddy's scratch, but why settle for that?.

The Rove Rats, and Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain Campaign's next step can be to offer, for a certain-level donation, that "Senator McCain will include you in his next telling of his POW-POW-POW experience.

Christ, they let loose with that, and it will make Obama's prodigious fundraising look like lunch money.

NeoNitWits and jingoistic jackasses will come out of the woodwork, cash-in-hand, lapping it up like happy soup.

A little more than two-months left of campaigning, a POW-POW-POW story, a day (hey, you don't want to dilute it, after all) ... Charging a premium if he does it in an interview, national media, versus local ... Cable news versus network news ... Newspaper or magazine ...

Once again, as much of his life, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain falls up the ladder.

He can go home, burst through all seven front doors and shout out "Cindy ... Honey ... You don't have to steal recipes anymore ... We hit the jackpot!"

Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 - Mas Que Nada

The Ultimate McCain POW Song

I was looking to take it easy today.

A rough day, or two, on the homefront, and even worse, in the Allergy Department (I am beginning to resemble the Our Gang dog, Petey, with a black circle blossoming around my left eye, from rubbing and scratching it).

But these guys just don't get it.

I mean, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, and his gang of Rove Rats, just don't get it.

I believe we are entering the territory of, if it's a cloudy day on the campaign trail, for the Dead Campaign Express, they'll make some reference to McCain's POW status, like "He'd be grateful for a cloudy day ... He didn't get to see many clouds for nearly five-years, while he was in his prison hole ...".

On Saturday, newly-minted Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden lobbed a great zinger in his speech Saturday, squarely at Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny;

Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine. You sit there at night before you put the kids -- after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It's a pretty hard experience. He'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at.

And, as on cue, less then 24-hours later, we have Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny, brushing off his dementia of not knowing how many houses he has with this;

From Greg Sargent, at TPM;

McCain slipped a reference to his war captivity into an interview McCain did with CBS that's airing today. He appeared to be referring to Joe Biden's crack yesterday that McCain has trouble considering people's kitchen table issues because he has to decide which of his own seven kitchen tables to use...

"I am grateful for the fact that I have a wonderful life," McCain said. "I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair, and I know what it's like to be blessed by the opportunities of this great nation...So the fact is that we have homes, and I'm grateful for it."

To which Sargent also noted;

But the "McCain-as-POW" currency the McCain camp is printing at such a furious rate -- and throwing wads of at every controversy that comes along -- is now losing value faster than the German Mark after World War I.

POW-POW-POW hyperinflation alert!

POW-POW-POW ...

It didn't take me long to A) slap myself upside the head and, B) start searching for the Ultimate McCain Pow Song, found very quickly.

Mas Que Nada!

It's a classic, covered by a bevy of folks (younger readers will likely believe it came from the Black Eyed Peas), and while I knew who did the original hit (posted below), I was hoping to find the Dizzy Gillespie version of it - he really puts some good chops into it.

One of the things that makes this the Ultimate McCain Pow Song is its meaning;

From Wikipedia;

In Brazilian Portuguese slang "mas, que nada" means something like "yeah, right", "don't be silly", or "no way, man". Literally the words mean "but, that [is] nothing".

Fits rather nicely into picture here.

So, hum and, sing along if you can

Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 - Mas Que Nada




And the next time (don't worry, it will be soon, very soon), Stumblin' Bumblin John McCain throws out the POW sob story, to excuse one of his miscues, flubs and gaffes (an ever-growing list), just start humming or singing 'Mas Que Nada'.

Much more pleasant to have this tune in your head, then the voice of "Whispering John" (H/T Barry Crimmins), bleating out another POW-laced excuse.


Bonus POW-POW-POW Links

kubla000: MoDowd Nails McCain's POW-POW-POW Defense w/ New Example ~ Updated: POW Ad Coming!

Maureen Dowd: Too Much of a Bad Thing

The Jed Report: A noun, a verb, and...

Ana Marie Cox: In His House There are Many Mansions

Sam Stein - Fineman: McCain Is Trivializing His POW Past

Steve Benen: A NOUN, A VERB, AND P.O.W...

Kagro X: McCain Eats the Seed Corn

No Sooner Had I Finished ...

"The insinuation, that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, doesn't know how many houses he has, is outrageous!"

McCain Waves The POW Flag

No Sooner Had I Finished ...

And, sure as you-know-what, satire gets usurped by reality.

THE POW CARD

After posting earlier today, we went out to the World Wide Web (Memeorandum), and, lo-and-behold, there was a McCain-sized-definition-of-rich number of posts, crying out the use of the POW Card, to explain away (or at least a finger in the dike), the complete ridicule Fly Boy was receiving, over his cluelessness on how many houses he owned.

When the post was written, I could think of a number of push backs the Stumblin Bumblin McCain Campaign may go with, but pulling out the now-getting-dog-eared POW Card was not one of them, and that is showing far more problems with the campaign (and candidate) then the MSM will ever admit.

As we alluded to in our previous post, this is getting embarrassing.

The gaffes, misspeaks, and just plain ignorance are bubbling up, more-and-more.

This is now the second time in less than a week, the Stumblin Bumblin' John McCain Campaign is hiding their bathrobe-clad, Slim Jim-juice-drooling candidate behind his POW experience.

And, in a bizzaro-world way, McCain's "how many houses do I own" gaffe, was somewhat of a silver lining.

Had he not blurted that gem out, the Stumblin' Bumblin McCain Campaign would have had a different conflagration to deal with, their candidates endorsement of establishing a draft again.

Small favors, huh?

Maybe questions need to be asked, if he is still, some 40+years later, crippled by that awful experience, perhaps, then, he needs to be in a Vet hospital, and not on the campaign trail.

Or, is the campaign using the POW Card as code, for his age?

They can't, very well, come out, throw up their hands and shrug "It's just another "senior moment" guys ..."

And all this is happening in the Dog Days of August ... Deadsville on the campaign trial, with vacations, and such, and, especially this year, with the Olympics going on.

You, practically, have to light yourself on fire to get any possible coverage, typically.

Christ, what's going to happen next month, after the VP choices, after the conventions?

We'll need one of the stat counters, like they use in boxing, to keep count of the jabs/punches-thrown in a given round, to have any hope of getting a count on Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny's stumbles and bumbles.

When they go to the debates, they'll have to add an extra scoreboard, with a running count of McCain's flubs and miscues.

Vegas will have to start issuing Over/Unders on this.

In fact, just to hedge my bets, I'm putting a marker down, here

It won't surprise me, if at the Republican Convention, Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain flies into Minneapolis as the "presumptive nominee", but a wee bit of monkey business goes on, and Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain flies out of Minneapolis with a ailment, ironically, like those old Russian leaders used to get, when it was their time to go.

Then again, the GOP knows (thanks to the inhabitants of the Bush Grindhouse) that they are completely fucked in November, and they might as well let Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain absorb the drubbing - at least, that way, they won't have to deal with him in 2012, mounting, "one more time", a presidential campaign.


Bonus House of Mirrors Links

Architectural Digest Visits Senator and Mrs. John McCain

Brandon Friedman: John McCain Needs to Lay Off the POW Talk

Spencer Ackerman: Use It Tonight

Marc Ambinder: McCain Is To Houses What GWBH Was To Grocery Store Scanners?

Sam Stein: McCain Camp Plays POW Card On House Gaffe

Like Sands Through The Hour Glass, These Are The Cross Stories of My Campaign

Man, this Saddleback thing, it seems to be generating more questions than the "mirror-mirror" format used last evening.

To follow-up on our just posted "Blazing Saddlebacks" , there's, yes, another brouhaha in the making.

As we noted, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain went into hyper overdrive with his POW stories last evening ("McCain fired out the old POW tales as if there were a panel of judges, who would score them based on his detail and animation."), telling one in which, on Christmas, a guard drew a cross in the sand and he and McCain stood there silently, two Christians in worship.

All so touching, yes?

Well, hold off on the hankies, as the DNA of this little tale is taking more flak than that which knocked our Stumblin' Bumblin' Fly Boy out of the Vietnamese skies.

It appears, possibly, that Stumblin' Bumblin' John may have lifted the story from Russian author (how ironic this is) Alexander Solzhenitsyn!

McCain's "Cross In Dirt" Story Questioned

The source of that story about Solzhenitsyn is The Sign of the Cross, Fr. Luke Veronis, In Communion, issue 8, Pascha 1997 but clearly the story was known before 1997 for Fr. Veronis to cite it here. Update - the source is Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, published in the West in 1973.

So, is this story just more carefully-crafted Republican propaganda, one more "powerful story" intended to trick the Christians into voting for them, so they can give ever-greater tax cuts to the rich and subsidies (and drilling leases) to oil companies?

And in 2000 McCain told the story - saying it was a different prisoner.

Looks like McCain really WAS telling a whopper to get votes. And he's been caught red-state-handed.

Bob Cesca asks;

Weird. Given all of his experiences in the Hanoi Hilton, why would he borrow a story from someone else? Oh. That's right. He's McCain -- he'll do or say anything to win an election.

As Jed Lewison points out;

As for whether or not there's precedent for McCain fabricating POW stories, consider the fact that he claimed that he became a fan of ABBA's Dancing Queen before his capture (Dancing Queen came out two years after his release), and consider his convenient swapping of the Green Bay Packers with the Pittsburgh Steelers in another POW story when he was in eastern PA.

There may be a simple explanation of this - Cindy found it on the internet.

Otherwise ...

Oh Boy! ... Put on your raincoats, for it will be flying all over the place over the next few days.


Bonus "John McCain: Home of the Whopper" Links

Michael D: McCain’s Borrowed “Cross in the Sand” Story

dday: If A Nose Grows In The Forest...

Throwing Stones: McCain lies, contradicts himself on Cross story. With evidence

Calouste: No "cross in the sand" for McCain in 1973 [Updated x2] Story unlikely to be true

If He Really Wanted To Scare'em, He Would Have Named Big Daddy Lipscomb ...

Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain likes to talk about his military service.

He's made a career of it.

It's not cool when other people talk about his military service, that it doesn't qualify him for office, or that it is full of potholes and hype.

In the "Irony Department", shortly after the manufactured outrage over General Wesley Clark's comments, the Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain campaign put out a new ad, leaning heavily on - you guessed it - his military service.

John McCain TV Ad: Love

You should get a laugh, with the attempt to paint Obama with "The Summer of Love", complete with Haight Ashbury, tie-dye footage, but the kicker in this offering is the money line - "Don't hope for a better life, vote for one ..."

And, with his General chief Economic Advisor calling us all "whiners", I suppose we can't whine about hoping to have a better life.

We are, if we follow the directives of the SB McCain campaign ads, to be silently hopeless.

Well, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain put out his own version of hopelessness the other day.

And the spin isn't a good one.

He's either losing his memory, getting confused ...

Or, it was outright, nauseating, obsequious pandering

We speak of this;

McCain Exploits the Steelers. Now the Man Has Gone Too Far

Here's the deal. John McCain tells a story from time to time (it's in his 1999 memoir "Faith of My Fathers," for example) about how under pressure as a POW in Vietnam to give up vital information, McCain pretended to hand over the names of his squadron mates by reciting the starting lineup of the Green Bay Packers. The kicker was McCain's CO, Ray Nitschke.

It's an incredibly admirable story and it reminds you that underneath the artifice of campaigns that we spend so much time trying to peel away here at MoJoBlog, there are men and women of character who seek to lead the country.

But John McCain has thrown this story into the political ring. In an interview with KDKA-TV, a Pittsburgh CBS affiliate, McCain professed his boyhood love for the Steelers and retold the charming POW story. But this time he inserted the Steelers where the Packers had been.

Any sports fan will tell you, that's just not cool.

On Countdown last night, "More Lies About Viet Nam From McCain's Double Talk Express"

(You can go to the full interview here)

What makes this an incredible faux pas, the Pittsburgh Steelers of 1967, when SB John was shot down and captured, sucked.

Yet, in the interview, McCain emphasized the "defensive line", inferring, no doubt, putting into the minds of the viewers, the infamous, Super Bowl-winning Steel Curtain (which, of course, didn't come to fame until the early 70's, long after McCain was released and out of Viet Nam).

Yet, he's on the record, multiple times, in his book, in the television movie of his book, interviews, etc, of telling this story, as noted above, using the powerhouse Green Bay Packers of the day.

So, if we follow his strategy, next time he's in Chicago, it will be he names the Cubs? ... Kansas City, the Chiefs? ... Boston, the Red Sox or Celtics? ... Hell, why not go for it all, and blurt out the "Murderers Row" New York Yankees?

Surely, things he, or his campaign could have Googled.

If the campaign wants to salvage this, they can fall back on the "he is aware of the internet".

Good for him - that means he's going to be aware what a jackass he's looking like for pulling this stunt.

But for my money, this is a loser, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain blew it, back in '67".

If he really wanted to scare-the-shit out of his captors, he should have named Big Daddy Lipscomb.






















Or, Chuck Bednarik