Be careful what you wish for, maybe?   Elder journalist Sydney H. Schanberg, this time in the Nation, apparently backing up part of crazy Bob Dornan’s crazy talk. Sample:

It’s not clear whether the taped confession McCain gave to his captors to avoid further torture has played a role in his post-war behavior in the Senate. That confession was played endlessly over the prison loudspeaker system at Hoa Lo—to try to break down other prisoners—and was broadcast over Hanoi’s state radio. Reportedly, he confessed to being a war criminal who had bombed civilian targets. The Pentagon has a copy of the confession but will not release it. Also, no outsider I know of has ever seen a non-redacted copy of the debriefing of McCain when he returned from captivity, which is classified but could be made public by McCain.

So, in all seriousness, I’m not going to fault anyone for anything they did in a fucking Vietnamese POW camp. I generally make a few anti-American commie propaganda tapes before I go out for phở, just to be on the safe side. I’m what they call in military jargon “a big fucking coward”, and consider myself a living example of why conscription is a bad idea.

Also, Bob Dornan, Ted Sampley, Ross Perot etc. – these are crazy, crazy people, sad drifters in the psychic badlands of Outer Wingnuttistan. I have not looked into the whole POW/MIA issue, because I have limited free time and have found that fitting my shoes into Congressman Dornan’s unfortunate footsteps is a poor use of it, and will tend to make me feel like Major Tom floating away from all that is solid and sane.  I can empathize with the families who pursued this issue in the 70′s, 80′s, and beyond, who were tormented by loss and a dreadful uncertainty, and I can understand how they would want there to be some way to hold out hope for their loved ones’ return – but that doesn’t make them, you know, factually correct.

And, finally, while The Nation is in many ways a wonderful publication, they often appear willing to publish literally any bullshit by writers who can produce their authentic 1968 SDS Inner Circle commemorative roachclip, so the fact that it appears in those pages does not necessarily make it any less crazy.  The queasiness you are experiencing may not be evidence that you have been wrenched into a parallel perpendicular universe where up is down and black is white and Ross Perot is occassionally something other than Verne Troyer with a Scrooge McDuck money and a pulsating brain tumor made out of psilocybin crystals.  You might just be lactose intolerant.

Anyway, this itself isn’t a proper ratfuck, as no one who reads the Nation was going to vote for McCain anyway.  However, it might lend some legitimacy to cynical outflanking-from-the-bonkers-right maneuvers, so perhaps a rodentine marital aid of some sort?  Now if you will excuse me, I need to get my drank on.

h/t J-.

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