Beyond Ridiculous

I wrote a post last night about McCain's obnoxious habit of using his status as a POW to evade every scrap of criticism and create himself as some kind of astonishing expert in, well, everything. I figured I'd wait until the inevitable next time he trots out the POW pony to post it.

I underestimated his crassness. I figured it'd take him several days. It didn't:

The initial response from the McCain campaign on the senator’s confusion about how many homes he owns was pretty weak. Put it this way, it talked about arugula and Hawaii.

A couple of hours later, though, the McCain gang went with the one response that applies to every question.

The McCain campaign is road-testing a new argument in responding to Obama’s criticism of his number-of-houses gaffe, an approach the McCain camp has never tried before: The houses gaffe doesn’t matter because … he was a P.O.W.!

“This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison,” spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.

I see. When the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a close Bush ally, publicly questioned McCain’s marital infidelities, the McCain campaign responded by highlighting McCain’s background as a prisoner of war.

When Dems attacked McCain’s healthcare plan in May, McCain responded by noting his background as a prisoner of war.

Asked by a local reporter about the first thing that comes to his mind when he thinks of Pittsburgh, McCain responded by talking about his background as a prisoner of war.

Accused of possibly having heard the questions in advance of Rick Warren’s recent candidate forum, the McCain campaign responded by highlighting McCain’s background as a prisoner of war.

There seems to be a pattern here.

There is indeed. It's gotten pathological, and it's infuriating, and it's time for it to stop. There's a fine line between informing and exploiting. McCain's so deep into exploitation territory he can't even see the line now.

Giuliani had 9-11 Tourette's. McCain's got the same thing with POW. I just hope the similarities won't end there.

I'll be posting my smackdown on Monday. Why start the weekend with a quick shot of outrage when we can save it for the long, slow burn? I'm sure he'll have ridden the POW pony to the well of excuses a few more times by then, so the piece will still be topical.