Andanh.com

I have no idea when reverence fled these shores. That it did, however, seems obvious. What else can you conclude when the service of military men becomes a routine object of mockery and misinformation in the name of politics? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you John McCain: traitor.

In most quarters, of course, the senator is regarded as anything but. In those quarters, he is a war hero, having survived more than five years of beatings, solitary confinement and deprivation in a Vietnamese prison camp, even refusing an offer of early release because it meant leaving fellow prisoners behind.

But John Aravosis, who blogs on Americablog.com, has a different take. In a posting last week, he accused McCain of "disloyalty" because at one point, his captors tortured him into reading a propaganda statement.

I submit that Aravosis would read a statement denouncing his own mother if you beat him long enough. Most of us would. We would trust Mom to understand that we acted under duress, that we did what we needed to survive. We would trust that 40 years later, no one would raise this as proof of "disloyalty."

That Aravosis has done precisely that is bizarre, shameful and crude -- but not unprecedented.