McCain milking his POW status

Don't leave yet!

It's not me that thinks that. It's Former President Jimmy Carter. Yikes!

Former president Jimmy Carter called Republican presidential candidate John McCain a "distinguished Naval officer," but said the Arizona senator has been "milking every possible drop of advantage" from his time served as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

and then later on

But he focused heavily on McCain, explaining how he was bewildered to see him during a conversation earlier this month with pastor and author Rick Warren at the Saddlebrook Church in Lake Forest, Calif. Carter said that whether the question was about religion, domestic or foreign affairs, every answer came back to his five-and-a-half years as a POW.

"John McCain was able to weave in his experience in a Vietnam prison camp, no matter what the question was," said Carter, a 7-year Naval officer who served aboard submarines. "It's much better than talking about how he's changed his total character between being a senator, a kind of a maverick at the time, and his acquiescence in the last few months with every kind of lobbyist pressure that the right wing Republicans have presented to him."

You may remember that Sen Leahy said:

Leahy told Vogel yesterday the media has given McCain a free pass on flubs including mixing up Middle East geography, Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and referring to Russia's relationship Czechoslovakia — a country that hasn't existed for 15 years.

"It was the same way with Ronald Reagan in the last few years he was president," Leahy said, referring to the belief that Reagan experienced early signs of Alzheimer's disease late in his presidency.