Day: August 13, 2008

McCain Plays the POW Card Like a Pro

Trish

John McCain has played the prisoner of war card so many times that others are doing it for him, as Sean Hannity recently demonstrated. Alan Colmes suggested that if having an affair makes John Edwards unfit for the White House, then John McCain must be unfit as well. Hannity’s response? McCain’s affairs didn’t count because they took place after he was a prisoner of war.

John McCain has traded being a prisoner of war for a lifetime Disney E-ticket since he returned to the United States. He used it to win his first race, blatantly exploiting it in his 1982 bid for a Congressional seat.

It’s not my intention to demean McCain’s imprisonment. I am just sick of hearing him use it, hide behind it, and pimp it out to explain racism, infidelity, hot-headedness, or any of his other failings.

McCain saturated local TV with an ad focused on his military record that showed him getting off a plane on crutches shortly after his release as a POW.

“It showed he was a hero. It would bring tears to your eyes,” said rival candidate Ray Russell, a veterinarian who finished second in the Republican primary that year.

In his 2002 book “Worth the Fighting For,” McCain himself acknowledged his strategy: “Thanks to my prisoner of war experience, I had, as they say in politics, a good first story to sell.”

And sell it he has.

When he won his first primaries earlier this year, what did he talk about? Being a prisoner of war.

Republican John McCain recalled his struggle as a Vietnam prisoner of war as he celebrated victories in presidential primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Tuesday…

“I seek the presidency with the humility of a man who cannot forget that my country saved me,” said McCain, a former Navy aviator who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after his plane was shot down.

When after a full week, he finally called the lone black reporter to “apologize” (if you can call saying it wasn’t his fault, it was the Secret Service’s an apology) for being thrown out of the media pool at his event in Florida, McCain made the stunning leap that being a prisoner of war exempted him from charges of racism.

[…]

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Good! Now we’ll have news from hell before breakfast.

— Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman (1826-1891), upon being told that three members of the press had been killed by artillery fire during the siege of Vicksburg, 1863.

Father of Edwards Mistress Electrocuted Horses for the Insurance Money

Trish

This is one of those stories that is so awful it makes you gasp, then bounce up and down, then hit the “send” button trying to tell everybody. So I’m telling you.

The woman John Edwards had his affair with has a bizarre past, including a father who electrocuted horses for the insurance money. I am not making this up.

First, a little background. Before she took the more exotic sounding name Rielle Hunter, Edwards’ mistress was good ol’ Lisa Jo Druck from Ocala, Fla. known in this state as horse country. There are ranches outside Ocala worth more than the average Rolls Royce dealership. Lisa apparently grew up riding horses.

But wait, here’s a warning. This is really bad. If you are an animal lover like me, don’t read the last three paragraphs of the quoted material.

Warning. This is really bad. If you are an animal lover like me, you might want to skip the last part.

Hunter’s father, James D. Druck, a successful Ocala lawyer representing insurance companies during the 1980s, was implicated in a scam that involved a local man, Tommy “The Sandman” Burns, who electrocuted horses for their owners to collect the insurance money. One of Burns’ first victims was the show horse Lisa Druck rode, Henry the Hawk.

Burns said in a 1992 Sports Illustrated interview that James Druck showed him how to electrocute Lisa’s horse using a stripped extension cord and a wall socket. Burns said Druck showed him the scam so Druck could collect $150,000 in insurance. Burns’ arrest in 1991 drew national attention. Druck died of cancer in the Tampa area in 1992…

About the time Lisa Druck’s horse died, Burns had already earned the nickname “Sandman,” a term horse owners gave him because when he showed up at horse shows, invariably a horse would mysteriously die.

Burns and accomplice Harlow Arlie, both of the Chicago area, were held at the Alachua County jail after their arrest in Newberry, according to stories published by The Gainesville Sun.

Burns’ choice of execution was electrocution because many veterinarians would wrongly determine the cause of death to be colic. That became a problem for Burns in 1991 when one horse owner couldn’t get an animal insured for colic, so the owner asked Burns to break the horse’s leg instead.

So, on the night of Feb. 2, 1991, Burns held the horse while his accomplice Arlie swung a crowbar into one of the animal’s rear legs. The animal ran into the night screaming, falling onto its broken, dangling leg. The animal was euthanized when a veterinarian was called by the horse’s owner.

The two men were sentenced in Alachua County Circuit Court. Both pleaded guilty or no contest to animal cruelty and insurance fraud and received jail sentences, according to Sun file stories.

Take a deep, cleansing breath.

Lisa went on to drop out of college and end up in New York where her exploits earned her a place in modern fiction, thanks to author Jay McInerney. And then she was introduced to John Edwards…