[Anyone] the realy fake mccain

[Thos Myers]

Tim Dickinson | Make-Believe Maverick
http://www.truthout.org/100508A
Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone: "This is the story of the real John McCain,
the one who has been
hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put
his own advancement above
all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate
ambition: to become
commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally
enable him to outrank his
four-star father and grandfather. In its broad strokes, McCain's life
story is oddly similar to
that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III
and George Walker Bush both
represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into
positions of privilege
against which they rebelled into mediocrity."

At Fort McNair, an army base located along the Potomac River in the
nation's capital, a chance reunion takes place one day between two former
POWs. It's the spring of 1974, and Navy commander John Sidney McCain III
has returned home from the experience in Hanoi that, according to legend,
transformed him from a callow and reckless youth into a serious man of
patriotism and purpose. Walking along the grounds at Fort McNair, McCain
runs into John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was also
imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.
McCain is studying at the National War College, a prestigious graduate
program he had to pull strings with the Secretary of the Navy to get into.
Dramesi is enrolled, on his own merit, at the Industrial College of the
Armed Forces in the building next door.
There's a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience
in North Vietnam - call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain
broke down under torture and offered a "confession" to his North
Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes.
For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions
that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry,
didn't survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word,
and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the
service's highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as "one of the
toughest guys I've ever met."
On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the
scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their
academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers
to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the
globe.
"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Iran."
"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.
"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.
"Why? Where are you going to, John?"
"Oh, I'm going to Rio."
"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"
McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.
"I got a better chance of getting laid."
Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in
Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not
surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he
is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the
undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."

http://www.truthout.org/100508A?print

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