McCain’s POW Email Makes Me Think Twice
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, History, McCain, WarBut not in a good way…
See, between McCain’s unfair attacks on Romney’s war stance and this extremely heavy handed email I was just sent by the campaign, I think I have to agree with Obama when he said the Straight Talk Express has lost a couple wheels.
Check it out…

Sure, this seems like some standard campaign stuff, meant to inspire us to be better Americans, respect our military, etc., but come on…vote for me because I was a POW fighting for your right to vote? Will this guilt trip actually be effective?
Hmm…
This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, History, McCain, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.









February 4th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/soapbox/mccain.asp
February 4th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Uh gee, I wasn’t aware that our aggression, our bombing, our killing of Vietnamese was necessary so that we may vote. WTF? McCain is insane.
Reminds me of the warmongers declaring that we are fighting in Iraq to protect our right of free speech.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I think it’s perfectly legitimate for McCain to remind us that he has a deeper understanding of sacrifice and survival than his opponents. I also think this story is much more in honor of a man McCain himself is awed by rather than a piece of self-promotion.
As for the “right to vote” reference, I imagine when you’re a POW, it helps to believe you’re fighting for a good cause. I don’t want to get into a Vietnam debate but those who believed in the domino theory really did think that stopping the advance of communism in Asia was essential to preventing communism from taking over or at least ruining our freedoms.
Finally, this is a call to vote, not to specifically vote for McCain. You can read opportunism into it, sure, but it’s really just a message saying our democracy isn’t free and we should honor it by voting. I see absolutely nothing wrong or offensive in this email.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Jaimie, McCain isn’t insane. Save that kind of talk for somewhere else.
Alan, this IS a call to vote for McCain specifically. It says so right at the top. Did you miss that?
February 5th, 2008 at 6:40 am
A perfectly legitimate ad. Curious that Mitt Romney isn’t guilt tripping us about fighting France while John McCain was mouldering in a POW camp.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Was this actually an e-mail message approved by his campaign, or something sent out by a surrogate group that supports him? Sounds more like the latter to me- and that they’re quoting a speech by John McCain where he was talking about the sacrifices made by POWs so that we can have the right to vote- not that he was using that to say that we should vote for him.
IOW, yes, the e-mail uses it to say “vote for John McCain”, but did John McCain say that or is someone else saying it?