Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

Categories: Blog Central, Capital Read, Inkless Wells

More from the strangest presidential campaign ever

by Paul Wells on Friday, October 24, 2008 11:43pm - 30 Comments

Yes, Biden actually said this. And while of course nobody can predict these things, there’s a decent chance he’s right. I think this is a clean check from the McCain camp, and a reminder of the days, so distant now, when it seemed that Biden would be the problematic veep candidate:

Tags: is it over yet?, US election

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nick303

kody,
you don’t think the possibility that mccain suffers from PTSD as a direct result of the torture he endured in vietnam might make him unfit to be president in exactly the scenario(s) being discussed because of biden’s statement? what makes us so sure he won’t have a panic attack if he feels cornered by foreigners?
does it make him more fit for office than someone who has not been tortured? furthermore, would someone got shot down over vietnam but managed escaped be more qualified than someone who was captured? what is it exactly that makes him the hero? his service itself? or the fact that he survived being captured and tortured?

and if torture is such a bad thing, why did he endorse bush’s use of it right up until he realized his campaign couldn’t endure a torture survivor endorsing it as national policy? he recommended the president veto the bill he helped introduce! if torture is a big enough deal for us to call him a war hero, isn’t it a big enough deal to unequivocally denounce it as un-american?

people happily show respect for mccain’s service to his country, but when he wants to use it as credentials in a job application, the public certainly has the right to question its relationship to the job. not everyone feels that military service trumps all other kinds of public service. many even feel community organizing contributes more positivity to this world than flying a fighter jet while trying to kill people from hundreds of feet up in the air.
Darren Trent

McCain is a hero, by any definition of the word. I wouldn’t vote for him, but..sorry to be cliche, but it’s true..he is the type of person that fights when called upon to keep our society free. A free society which gives you mopes would never fight to keep, but yet gives you the right to disparage your betters here.
Steve M

“Is there something I’m missing that makes this make sense?”

T. Thwim, from what I understand, McCain would have had to publicly denounce the United States first, or at least sign a letter to that effect, before being released. The VietCong weren’t going to let him go just to be nice.
T. Thwim

Steve: That can’t be it, because from what I read of his account, they tortured him into writing a letter confessing to various war crimes. Nobody’s ever contended they were letting him go to be nice, even McCain says that he learned later it was to be as leverage against his military father.

The thing that doesn’t jibe is, if that’s what they wanted him to do, why didn’t they make him do it? They were capable of making him write a letter confessing of being a war criminal, how then, would they have been incapable of making him sign something else?

Add that into the senate hearings into the vietnam prisoners where it sounds like McCain basically berated a mother looking for information on other prisoners that still might be there, taking it as an affront to his patriotism. http://thinkbridge.blogspot.com/2008/09/did-john-mccain-block-release-of-pow.html

That kind of defensive reaction doesn’t strike me as the reaction of someone who knows he did his best in there.
dan in van

Wow, Kody’s cracking up. How dare the MsM go from turning the other way to GWBush’s infractions and flaws and helping pin down a war hero, to suddenly going easy on this neophyte from who knows where?
What gumption, don’t they know Kody’s up in arms because the guys who screwed the world economy should be the natural screwed government for eternity? And mocking a war hero – by God, next thing they’ll be swift boating him…