It wasn't just the house ref this week, but a member of his staff also played the POW card on Monday when McCain was accused of cheating at the Saddleback Church forum. See here.

And Michael Goldfarb went to the POW well multiple times over the cross in the dirt stuff. For fun, go count how many times it has been used on that official McCain blog.

And James is right- the first thing I thought of when they started doing this was the way we mocked Kerry- "Did you hear John Kerry was in Vietnam?" was a running joke in 2004.

In the interests of balance, I think there's a case to be made that Obama has deployed the race issue as a shield too often. Meant to add that to my previous comment.

I'm with the majority on this one. The PoW line has come up far more than once and it's naive or disingenuous to believe/pretend that the staffers don't have their briefing points.

McCain's campaign rests on a number of planks, but there's no doubt that his PoW status is one of them and there's also no doubt that it's been deployed as a sort of patriotic force field. I don't believe it's credible to claim that the top ranks of the McCain campaign will not be aware of this and I also don't find the notion that McCain couldn't step in and put a stop to it if he wanted to particularly plausible.

I do think that they are taking an asset and turning it into self-parody.

Further, as noted about by James and Dave: McCain's election is predicated on what he will do, not what he did do decades ago.

His daddy and granddaddy were admirals, but John wasn't, and his military record is dismal.

I cannot find a single thing about John McCain to admire. We are only choosing between two men, ande the other has overcome significant disadvantages and risen to his current status stricly on the basis of his own ability.

Do we really need another intellectually challenged, accomplishment-free, spoiled scion of a rich family in the White House?

Seriously, you miss the point here: McCain's campaign staff work for him, and he needs to keep them on (or off, as the case may be) message.

"Shut the hell up about the POW thing. Mention it again and you're fired."

And thanks for the link, James.

So what is really happening is the chattering class is playing games with this and creating a bigger controversy than it really is. With respect, that would include our host here.

It is wrong to attribute everything a staffer might say to the candidate.

No way. We would've heard.

I remember seeing that on the television. My mother, who, though conservative, is no fan of President Bush, looked over the top of her newspaper, said "Oh for God's sake. Silly man." and went back to reading. Which, looking back, was perhaps as insightful as any of the commentary that was to emerge between that point and the election.