Did John McCain Steal His Cross In The Sand Story (And Lie In Church)

[berni_mccoy]

Run time: 03:13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4bTvhXMO7I   Posted on YouTube: August 18, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: August 18, 2008 By DU Member: berni_mccoy Views on DU: 2909

 

[Jim__]

1. I'm sure the MSM will pick up and report on that.

:sarcasm:

[Sallow]

28. Seems they have started.

August 18, 2008
McCain camp slams cross story skeptics
Posted: 05:28 PM ET

From CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand
A still from McCain’s cross ad, which ran this winter.
A still from McCain’s cross ad, which ran this winter.

(CNN) — John McCain’s campaign blasted critics who questioned the senator’s account of an incident during his time as a prisoner of war Monday, citing an account from his former fellow POW Orson Swindle and blaming the controversy on “the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd.”

During a presidential forum at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church on Saturday, McCain told a story of a guard who wordlessly drew a cross in the dirt one Christmas, describing it as a moment that gave him strength.

Critics in the blogosphere said that McCain, who was released in 1973, had not mentioned the incident until shortly before his 2000 presidential bid, and had relayed it in the third person on at least one occasion. They also pointed to similarities between McCain’s account and a similar story in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, his account of life in the Soviet labor camp system.

McCain aide Michael Goldfarb, in a message posted on the campaign’s Web site Monday, said Swindle – now a campaign surrogate – told him the presumptive Republican nominee had related the story “’when we first moved in together .’ That was in the summer of 1971, Swindle said, though ‘time blurred’ and he couldn't be sure,” wrote Goldfarb.

He also said that it was logical that Christians in both Russia and Vietnam might have used many of the same subtle signals during that era.

“It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others,” he wrote.

“John McCain has often said he witnessed a thousand acts of bravery while he was imprisoned, and though not every one has been submitted into the public record, they are remembered by the men who were there (one such only recently reported by Karl Rove though it escaped mention in any of Senator McCain's books). But as Swindle said, this is a ‘desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing.’”

In December, shortly before the primary season began, McCain's campaign used the story of the cross as the basis for a Christmas-themed campaign ad.

Filed under: John McCain

[keroro gunsou]

31. whiskey tango foxtrot...

do they mean by the "dungeons and dragons" crowd... :argh:

[wtmusic]

2. Nice try John.

:eyes:

[grannie4peace]

3. i called mcschrub's office & asked why he didn't write the cross in the sand

in his earlier work. I also cautioned them about lying in church.

[Heather MC]

13. Right after he told that story the Camera showed his wife. and I told my husband

She looks like she has never heard that story before

[Plucketeer]

4. The more I see of stuff like this

the more I'm convinced McCain makes Bush look like an amature! :banghead:

[crikkett]

19. 'amateur' and yes, someone ask USNA grad John McCain about plagarism and honor...

[The Wielding Truth]

23. He then chopped down the cherry tree and threw a dollar across

the Potomac. Crazy little Liar... He will say anything to get the ring.
Smeagol??

[alfredo]

5. Send it and Andrew Sullivan's column to everyone, including

local media outlets.

[Dystopian]

6. Thank you. k&r eom

Kicking for truth.

peace~

[wtmusic]

7. There are no Ahi Tuna recipes in "The Gulag Archipelago"

so at least we know Cindy's clean on this one.

[Waiting For Everyman]

8. McCain hasn't "changed"

he's always been consistently a rat.

[Hulk]

9. Will the MSM pick up on this?....I doubt it.

What a phoney sack of shit....old shit at that.

[Enrique]

10. the Gulag Archipelago was written in the first person

and that excerpt is in the third person. Has anyone verified this story?

[winnow]

11. Who's lying now?

Solzhenitsyn also published a two-volume work on the history
of Russian-Jewish relations (Two Hundred Years Together 2001,
2002). In it, Solzhenitsyn emphatically lays the blame for the
Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 on the Jews, but stops
short of alleging this to be the work of a "Jewish
conspiracy" He purports to document the predominance of
Jews in the early Bolshevik leaderships, excepting Lenin,
using unreliable and manipulated figures, while ignoring
evidence unfavorable to his own point of view.

Interesting that some are so eager to trust the word of an
anti-semite.

[berni_mccoy]

12. Wow, that's a stretch, even for a 1-post noob. No one is trusting the "word" of Solzhenitsyn

We're going on documented fact that Solzhenitsyn published a book with this story in it and that McCain read that book (as McCain publicly admitted in the NY Sun) and then used the same cross-in-the-dirt story for political gain.

Please, enjoy your pizza..

[Sallow]

22. When I heard this story I found it pretty funny.

Not sure but I seriously don't think many Asian communists are Christian. Especially in Vietnam.

[skygazer]

26. Actually you're wrong

Vietnam was a French colony for a long time - plenty of Vietnamese were and are Christians.

However, the story sounded far too pat to me and now I'll have to pull out my copy of The Gulag Archipelago and check it out.

[Sallow]

27. You can check the facts..if you like.

Vietnam has been dominated by many nations..and the funny thing was..they always resisted foreign cultures. You see a little French influence in Vietnamese cuisine but not much else. Vietnamese have fought off the Chinese, French, Japanese and French again and Americans. I've known both Veterans of the Vietnam war and people who have visited very recently. Christianity did not have many followers in Vietnam. Add in..McCain was held in a Viet Cong prison. The few Christians in Vietnam would be fighting for the South.

It is highly unlikely this story is true.

Nationality:
noun: Vietnamese (singular and plural)
adjective: Vietnamese
Ethnic groups:
Kinh (Viet) 86.2%, Tay 1.9%, Thai 1.7%, Muong 1.5%, Khome 1.4%, Hoa 1.1%, Nun 1.1%, Hmong 1%, others 4.1% (1999 census)
Religions:
Buddhist 9.3%, Catholic 6.7%, Hoa Hao 1.5%, Cao Dai 1.1%, Protestant 0.5%, Muslim 0.1%, none 80.8% (1999 census)
Languages:
Vietnamese (official), English (increasingly favored as a second language), some French, Chinese, and Khmer; mountain area languages (Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/vm.html

[1Hippiechick]

33. The VietNamese in the fishing villages in Alabama are Buddhist, and the few VietNamese

that I know locally are both Christian and Buddhist, for what it's worth.

[Sam Ervin jret]

14. The well used Republican technique of smear the messenger if you don't like the message will not

work in this case.

But it's not unexpected that a neocon apologist post would try that old classic technique.

A new idea which is intelligent(and not stolen) and respectful of constitutional law and the Bill of Rights, now that would be unexpected.

[Life Long Dem]

16. Let's see.

McSame could screw us over for who knows how long, and your defending him?

[jwlashta]

25. In fairness

I don't think the poster was defending McSame; I think he was trying to say that McCain was stealing the story from an anti-Semite (and is wondering why McBush would trust the word of such a man).

That being said, I'm with everyone else on this. This story about the author (I'm not even going to try to spell his name) having anti-Semitic tendencies has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

Furthermore, I would posit the question: Is it possible to separate a person's political/religious/personal views from the art he or she has created--unless that person's world views are a part of the art? Richard Wagner, for example, was a musical genius who composed some of the greatest and most memorable operas of the Romantic era (not to mention that he was one of the very few composers who also wrote his operas' libretto). Richard Wagner was also an anti-Semite.

[Divine Discontent]

17. the fact that he is or isn't a anti-semite is not of issue, he may be but that's not the issue - DUH

the response is from McCain hailing this book, that just so happens to have the same exact "cross in the sand" emotional event, as his very own account a few days ago. A story he never told 25 years ago...

McCain is disgusting, and you're sad for trying to divert attention from the fact.

[caseymoz]

29. I can't believe Solzhenitsyn would have discredited himself with antisemitism.

For one huge reason: Stalin himself wasn't Jewish, was a grand anti-semite. As the chief persecutor and murderer in Solshenitsyn's life, I cannot think that Solzhenitsyn would have forgotten about Stalin to blame the Jews.

You must concede that many of the early leaders of the Bolsheviks were Jewish. It was a far higher proportion than the Jewish population of what became the USSR. The reason is that the Jews were an oppressed underclass, most especially in Russia. Fringe movements like Bolshevism had appeal for those who experienced their formative years in oppression.

Another factor is that Jewishness is thought of both as an ethnicity and a religion. In no other religion can you lose the faith and still be identified by the ethnicity. So, Jews are basically "counted twice." People don't count it against Christianity that Stalin was a devout Christian at one time. Nobody thinks of Mao as a Confucian.

[eagertolearn]

32. Plagerism is plagerism! Your off the topic. n/t

[Life Long Dem]

15. I think this is as lowest as one can go

McSame carried this story around with him since Vietnam, and I can only imagine how many times he used this man's story to build himself. Everytime he told this story he had to lie.

[Divine Discontent]

18. it needs a very clean edited commercial that assaults the LIE

McCain is willing to LIE about a cross in the sand, used from a book he admires, and says it in a church with a tear in his eye - to advance his status - for AMBITION - as he admitted in the interview about why he stood up for the bigots during the 2000 Rebel flag crisis in S.C.

[King Coal]

20. I heard that story before, except the guy's name was Larry.

[SKKY]

21. Ooops!

Hate it when that happens!

[stark6935]

24. That

story sounded really fake to me too.

[caseymoz]

30. I'd like to find out what Republicans think.

Are they going to think, "Wow! That happened to Solzhenitsyn too?" :silly:

McCain needs to edacate hisself about the internets. If a politician lies or plagiarizes these days, people find out pretty quick. Or he should ask George "Macaca" Allen what happened when about a million people can look up what you said. :nopity:

What's really sad is, Republicans are too comfortable with an incompetent liar holding office. As long as he's telling the right lies they'll grin and bear it forever. :grr:

:dem: