Was John McCain even tortured at all? If (underlined twice) this story is true then the central plank of his self-constructed personal mythology is rotten:
From the Corriere della Serra via this morning’s Guardian:
The Republican US presidential candidate John McCain was not tortured during his captivity in North Vietnam, the chief prison guard of the jail in which he was held has claimed.
In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Nguyen Tien Tran acknowledged that conditions in the prison were “tough, though not inhuman”. But, he added: “We never tortured McCain. On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded.”
McCain, who fell into enemy hands after his plane was shot down in 1967, has frequently referred to being tortured and has cited his experiences as a reason for vigorously opposing the endorsement by the Bush administration of the use of techniques such as “water-boarding” on terrorist suspects.
Whether Tran’s story is true or not – and there’s no way to judge at this point – just as a matter of interest, how long have the Democrats been sitting on him? The timing does seem a little fortuitous, and leads me to wonder what, if anything the Dems have in reserve against McCain’s increasingly enraged and erratic campaign as it ramps up the nastiness in the final weeks. Is this story the only bombshell in the Democratic political armoury or just the first of many?
