Evan Thoms has writtn a wonderful article about John McCain in next weeks Newsweek Magazine. A few quotes are as follows:
During the 2000 election, Republican smear artists trying to stop the presidential campaign of John McCain spread rumors that the former POW was "nuts" because he had been "in the cage too long"—in the Hanoi Hilton for five and a half years. The campaign decided to make public Captain (now Senator) McCain's medical records, which showed that he had an enlarged prostate and trouble lifting his arms (repeatedly broken in captivity), but had been judged perfectly sane by a series of Navy psychiatrists who had tested him for years after his release from prison.
The details of those medical evaluations make you wonder why McCain is not stark raving mad today. Tortured repeatedly to extract a confession, McCain "tried to hang himself X2 to avoid giving in........
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The McCains are not like most Americans. They belong to a warrior caste that has been fighting America's conflicts for more than two centuries. (McCain's grandfather Adm. John S. McCain was depressed at the surrender of Japan. He complained to his chief of staff, "I feel lost. I don't know what to do," and died of a heart attack four days later.) .....
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on Oct. 26, 1967, he was flying through heavy flak over Hanoi, dodging SAM missiles that looked "like flying telephone poles," when he heard a "beep" signaling that a SAM had locked on to his plane. McCain was just about to drop his bomb on target. He writes that he should have jinked to evade the missile, but out of stubbornness, or a mad kind of bravery, he flew straight on and toggled the bomb switch—just as the missile blew off the right wing of his plane. The force of the ejection from the spinning plane broke his right leg and both arms.....
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Near death, McCain survived in prison camp by sheer cussedness. The same belligerence that got him into trouble in school worked to maintain his spirits as he cursed and taunted his guards in solitary confinement.....
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To read the entire column click on the title for a link.
