All of the outrage over anyone daring to question John McCain's fitness to be president by saying being shot down and held as a POW isn't a real test of executive ability got me to thinking a couple of thoughts.
Probably too many of you are too young to remember the Democratic Saint - John F. Kennedy. He was the president who was also a World War II hero, one who got his PT boat cut in half by a Japanese destroyer while making a night attack on Japanese shipping, was injured, and risked capture before being rescued with his surviving crew. They even made a movie about it, PT-109. That campaign seems like such a simpler time now, almost innocent - yet it was the one that really schooled Richard M. Nixon and set him on his dark path.
Is John McCain a kind of anti-JFK? An aging war hero well past his prime, defending a failed regime? Does he have a comparable cult of adulation? Instead of New Frontiers will he lead us into The Wasteland?
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Second, if the POW experience is the great forge that made John McCain what he is, the torture, the deprivation, the years cut off from family, home and country; if it's what gives him political credibility - what are we now forging in the torture prisons we're running?
What future leaders are we shaping who will someday come back to challenge us? Will they be flying their own version of the POW-MIA flag? We have no idea how many people have been swept up around the world and 'disappeared' - it's not just Guantanamo or other black sites. There are rumors of floating prisons outside anyone's jurisdiction. It is highly unlikely any of them hold another Mahatma Ghandi or Nelson Mandela.
The legacy of Bush-Cheney is a gift that will keep bearing toxic fruit for generations to come.
"We pray for mercy, because we would all be fools to pray for justice."
Compare, contrast, discuss.