re: One McCain POW Lie

Writes Andrew Penn Fitzgerald: “Admittedly this is hearsay, but over the years I’ve read at least two accounts from fellow POWs who said that McCain was ordered by James Stockdale (who was the ranking US officer at the Hanoi POW camp) to turn down the early release because other POWs had been there far longer than McCain and should go first. If any of the POWs is a ‘hero,’ then, it is Stockdale.

“Admiral Stockdale would later speak truth to power when he went on record describing his flights over the Gulf of Tonkin during the famous incident and stated that he had ‘the best seat in the house’ flying over the US vessels, and that the North Vietnamese boat attacks of LBJ’s story were a complete myth. It’s a true shame that most people’s memory of this great man is from a debate against professional politicians for which he had less than two days to prepare after being selected by Perot.”

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12:55 pm on September 5, 2008