McCain Claims

On Rumsfeld: (with video)

One of the more outlandish claims John McCain routinely makes on the campaign trail is his boast that he called for Donald Rumsfeld’s ouster before he resigned. Part of the problem with the bogus claim is that major media personalities believe the claim, and keep passing it on to national audiences as if it were true.

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Part of the problem, I suspect, is that Blitzer and Borger have heard McCain make the claim, and they assume he’s telling the truth. Of course, if Blitzer and Borger were better journalists, they’d actually check to see if McCain’s claim was accurate before repeating the lie for a national television audience, but my hunch is, they both think, “McCain wouldn’t just make something like that up. He keeps saying it, so it must be true.”

It’s part of the larger problem of McCain’s media adulation — there’s simply no skepticism. They accept his “straight-talking” persona, which they’ve helped manufacture, at face value.
With this in mind, it’s worth setting the record straight. Every time McCain claims credit for calling for Rumsfeld’s ouster, he’s not telling the truth.

On Waterboarding: (with video)

Is there any doubt that the media is in the bag for McCain? Maybe I should say—at his barbeques? McCain was profiled on 60 Minutes Sunday night and it was the type of softball profile we’re used to seeing for Republicans, but when they brought up waterboarding—-well then, it’s time to at least be serious. McCain unequivocally says it’s torture and brings up the prosecution of the Japanese and their use of it in WWII to make his point.

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Pelley asked him about American interrogation methods today. Asked if water boarding is torture, McCain said, “Sure. Yes. Without a doubt.”

“So the United States has been torturing POWs?” Pelley asked.

“Yes. Scott, we prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II. And one of the charges brought against them, for which they were convicted, was that they water-boarded Americans,” McCain said.

“How did we lose our way?” Pelley asked.

“I don’t know the answer to that. I think one of the failures maybe was not to listen more to our military leadership, including people like General Colin Powell, on this issue,” McCain said.

How then did John McCain lose HIS way on torture? Why didn’t he ask him the reason he flip flopped and voted in favor of waterboarding if in fact McCain believes it’s torture? Isn’t that the type of question that America needs an answer to? Howard Kurtz even brought it up on his show and criticized the media over their treatment of it a few weeks ago.

KURTZ: But another Senator McCain was on display this week, one who seemed to differ from the former prisoner of war who has made his signature issue out of opposing torture tactics by American interrogators. McCain voted against the bill to ban tactics such as waterboarding, saying he felt agencies like the CIA needed flexibility in terror investigations. Why has this received so little media attention?

“The New York Times” today has a story about this five days after the vote. “The Washington Post” did it yesterday. But most of the establishment media kissed it off.

McCain closes by saying he can win in November because he’s a conservative Republican, but Pelley had nothing in the piece about the contempt held for him by conservatives—especially the talk show hosts that skewer him constantly. And what about the Hagee endorsement? Can’t mention that either? Contact Scott Pelley/ 60 Minutes and ask them why these most important issues were either purposefully left out of the segment and why journalistic malpractice was committed.