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Our Friend John McCain: Funny, I thought Green Bay was in Pittsburgh...Just down the road from Tuzla
As I'm watching Countdown, we get the story of "our friend" John McCain in Pittsburgh answering the question, "What do you think of when you hear "Pittsburgh?" McCain's answer: the Pittsburgh Steelers. McCain goes on to tell his interviewer an anecdote of giving the name of the famed Pittsburgh Steelers defensive line to his captors as he was being tortured to get some relief.
Is there a problem with that? Just a tiny one.
McCain had written about this incident in his book (page 194) and described reciting the names of the Green Bay Packers football team... Coach Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr and company. It was re-enacted in a made for television movie, using the Packers and not the Steelers.
Another problem? The famed Steelers (Terry Bradshaw, Mean Joe Greene, Lynn Swann, Franco Harris and teammates both offensive and defensive) to which McCain referred did not become "famed" until after McCain had been repatriated.
Oops...
Isn't it just a little, um, odd that John McCain like a former Democratic candidate (who shall go nameless but who had passed the all-important commander-in-chief threshhold and who like McCain had a "lifetime of experience") in the same campaign season, would be felled with the same "misremembering" contagion just months apart? You'd think the campaign might have gotten vaccinated against this sort of thing.
At least he didn't claim it was the 9-time Super Bowl Champs, the Tuzla Torpedos.
Comments (13)
Unfortunately Olberman is probably the only place you'll hear it on television. Well, maybe the Daily Show. Thank God for Countdown for being the exception to the pro-McCain bias.
July 11, 2008 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody lies about the Stillers and gets away with it.
July 11, 2008 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn skippy. :)
July 11, 2008 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I finally figured out what Jade's mission here is. I knew it wasn't to promote Obama, but until this little gem I couldn't put my finger on what he or she is up to. Now it's clear that the idea is to make sure Hillary's people never quite get behind Obama. Well done, actually.
July 12, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Billy Glad declares that both he and Jade have the same objective.
July 12, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now if I can just find out if the people around here using British and Aussie words like "arse" and "bum" and "spot on" are really British or Aussie or just Americans prone to affectations, I'll be happy. Bet your ass. Right on.
July 12, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
And can you also explain why you used the furrin word "Hubris" when you were dying to call him "an uppity......!
July 12, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Billy Glad,
Who wrote "bum" and "spot on" aside from you. Show the proof. I dare you. You are a Fucking Liar!
Nice to see that you have become the Tom Tancredo of American English. How dare anyone use an English word when speaking English, right American English Minute Man!
B
July 12, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
"William Glum" reads a post about John McCain and declares it to be all about someone else. Further he states he has determined the "mission" of my secret Manchurian candidacy is to somehow harm the presumptive Democratic nominee. I do this by insuring the vast majority of my posts are decisively pro-Obama. This is to confuse persons who might otherwise be pro-Obama but get tripped up by secret buzz words that brainwash them into being "pro-the other guy," or failing to transfer their affection from other Democratic candidates to Obama. Why just the other day, I sent a secret message to Jesse Jackson and made him say some things on FOX. Throughout the primary season, I sent special messages out to create all kinds of gaffes and goof-ups. (Actually, I didn't realize I was so powerful!)
So when you read my posts, boys and girls, whip out your secret decoder rings, and use them to find this secret message: "Drink More Ovaltine!" "Mr. Glum" should make certain he lines his hat with tinfoil to block the x-rays I'm sending in direction.
July 12, 2008 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The power of the sports metaphor in communicating to an audience is not in its accuracy. It's all about male bonding.
The average McCain leaning Joe who lives in Pittsburg will be far too busy pumping his fist and yelling "Go Steelers" to fact check his sports stats.
As will all Bills fans in Buffalo and Vikings fans in Minnesota when he recounts the story again with there team and players.
July 12, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Male bonding" would be a good excuse if McCain had not been so specific in the past. That makes it a credibility problem, in addition to the pandering to Pittsburgh.
This time, it's all about the accuracy. Surely one or two or ten of those "McCain leaning Joes" can read and have read McCain's book. Or they watched the TV movie. Surely, there's someone scratching his head going "Wait a minute...I thought he said..." Ot there's some Green Bay fan saying, "Hey, I thought he said..."
But perhaps McCain was just sleep deprived.
July 12, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you tell the average Steeler fan this story, and then tell them that McCain was in POW lockdown from 1967-73, they'll tell you McCain's full of shit.
You can't get by with that in Pittsburgh. Not about the Steelers, anyway.
July 12, 2008 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Any football fan who knows what year McCain was talking about knows the Steelers were awful back then. They drafted Terry Bradshaw with the first pick in the draft in '70 because they were so bad.
They didn't turn it around til 1972 when they finished 11-3 and went to the playoffs for the first time since 1947. McCain came home in March 1973.
July 12, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
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