Move along, nothing to see here. McCain's top aid, Salter, confirms cross story.

[jefferson_dem]

...to neocon yellow journalist Byron York at NRO.

Mark Salter: McCain Told Me the "Cross in the Dirt" Story

I just got off the phone with Mark Salter, John McCain's closest aide whom some in the blogosphere are suggesting made up, or embellished, or did something to create the "cross in the dirt" story. Salter told me that he absolutely did not do that. This is how it came about, according to Salter:

Salter told me that when he was working with McCain on Faith of Our Fathers, "I would sit down with him about six or seven o'clock at night when the Senate was in session and interview him for a couple of hours over the course of a year." Salter says McCain and his fellow POWs were guided by an ethic of "faith in God, faith in country, and faith in each other." As part of the book research, Salter says, he said to McCain, "Give me personal experiences about all three categories. So he talked about a couple of Christmas services that they had, the event known as the 'church riot,' and the punishment cell. And he told me the 'cross in the dirt' story, which we used in the book and in speeches."

When I asked about questions of whether McCain used the story publicly before the book was published, Salter said, "McCain never told this story? In what? In a magazine piece. We did a book about his prison experience. It was 120,000 words. There are many, many stories in that book that I bet never appeared in U.S. News and World Report."

As for assertions that the "cross in the dirt" story was a "pivotal" experience in McCain's time as a POW, Salter said, "That's just plain bulls—t. His pivotal experience was his refusal of early release and the three or four days of torture he took for it, his confession, and his attempted suicide. That was his pivotal experience. He's never represented to be that."

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2FlNDgxZGFlYThjOGYxNDc0ODllZWM1ZGVkN2E3ODY=

[babylonsister]

1. What a bunch of baloney. Salter ...

he'd worked for McBush for 17 years as of 2006, and basically wrote those books, I'm sure. Would it not be to his benefit to lie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Salter

Mark Salter is an American speechwriter from Davenport, Iowa known for his collaborations with United States Senator John McCain on several nonfiction books as well as on political speeches.

Aside from having worked on Senator McCain's staff for seventeen years (as of 2006), Salter has also written, in collaboration with McCain, the books Why Courage Matters, Faith Of My Fathers, Worth the Fighting For, Character is Destiny, and "Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them".

[jefferson_dem]

4. Their desperation is showing. Now it wasn't a pivotal experience.

So I guess they are throwing "the dirt cross" under the bus.

[Spazito]

2. LOL!

Well, that's it then, McCain's ghost writer/fellow aficionado of Solzhenitsyn/top aide has spoken, I guess we were all wrong, darn!

:rofl:


What this tells me is the question HAS legs, legs enough for the McCain campaign to feel they need to address it. Damn good news, imo.

[Barack_America]

3. Salter: McCain incorrect when he said the "cross in the dirt" was a pivotal POW experience.

Um, Mark, the man is running TELEVISION COMMERCIALS discussing what a pivotal moment this supposedly was for him.

And "bullshit"? Wow, looks like this has touched a nerve!

[jefferson_dem]

5. Someone needs to get Ricky Warren and the fundies on the horn...

and tell them that little cross in the dirt thang...McCain was just blabbering. There wasn't anything to it, really.

[Barack_America]

7. True. But I do wonder how many more "McCain doesn't speak for McCain" moments...

We're going to see in this election.

The man is entirely propped up by aides and consultants. Why when McCain screws up do we never hear from the candidate himself?

[DefenseLawyer]

6. Such language!

That will get you a rap on the knuckles quicker than you can say "Money Shot".

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

9. Touched a nerve is right. I doubt it will get the play it deserves though.

[JackORoses]

8. There is a smoking gun on this.

McCain said that the guard who loosened his ropes was the same one who drew the cross.
But McCain was transferred between camps in the time between the two incidents.
Are we to believe the guard transferred with McCain?

It's a lie. Plain and simple.

[Barack_America]

10. And, if this was true, why would McCain later refer to all Vietnamese as "gooks"...

The way McCain describes it, this man's courage and compassion brought him closer to Christ. Why would he describe such a man as a "gook"?

[TheKentuckian]

11. Have you ever seen a Republicans lips moving?

If so then congratulations! You have caught them in a lie.