John McCain's get out of trouble cards, "but I was a POW and don't ever flaunt it or that was long time ago", is getting old. He was serial adulterer almost 30 years ago and is forgiven by evangelicals because it was almost 30 years ago. I guess character is not such a big issue for them if it is properly aged.
He was officially chastised for bad Judgment when the Keating Five lobbied for Charles Keating one of McCain's key backers in Phoenix during the Savings and Loan crises. Well that was 20 years ago!
He is now the press's maverick who is said to go against the established interests especially lobbyists. That has certainly proven to be false given the "maverick"has mostly lobbyists running his campaign.
John McCain has had a shady history I would also like to forget if he wasn't running for President. If all else fails he is forgiven because he was a POW 40 years ago. There are just too many references to his military history not to examine how often it happens.
Why he has seven houses and has trouble revealing this:
"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.
TPM
How POW works into attacking projects in the Senate:
McCain criticized Sen. Hillary Clinton for proposing funds for a museum celebrating Woodstock. He didn't know what there was to celebrate, he said, because he was "tied up" during the music festival.
Huffington Post
How being a POW prevented him for decades in catching up with the music world:
Explaining that his favorite song was "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, he offered that his knowledge of music "stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile." Dancing Queen, however, was produced in 1975, eight years after McCain's plane was shot down.
Huffington Post
How being a POW absolves him from being tacky to pander bikers at Sturgis rally:
"The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the pastor who married Jenna Bush and who is part of a new Christian-based political action committee supporting Obama, recently criticized the joke McCain made at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally encouraging Cindy to enter the topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest. The McCain spokesman Brian Rogers brought out the bottomless excuse, responding with asperity that McCain’s character had been ‘tested and forged in ways few can fathom.’"
Washington Post
POW status makes is impossible to question his behavior today:
After the Saddleback forum, The New York Times reported there had been some concern from Obama supporters that McCain was not completely isolated during Obama's appearance with Pastor Rick Warren. The Times quoted McCain campaign spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace's response, in which Wallace referred to McCain's POW experience: "The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous."
Media Matters