John McCain est-il en train de perdre le respect qui est dû à un ancien P.O.W. (prisonnier de guerre)? C'est la question que soulève la chroniqueuse du New York Times Maureen Dowd aujourd'hui. Ces jours-ci, souligne-t-elle dans cet article, le camp McCain invoque la captivité de l'ancien pilote de la Navy pour réfuter chacune des critiques de ses adversaires, ou presque. La semaine dernière, un de ses porte-parole y a notamment fait allusion lorsque Barack Obama et ses alliés se sont moqués des sept maisons du prétendant républicain. Je cite dans le texte un extrait de la chronique de Dowd :
The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the pastor who married Jenna Bush and who is part of a new Christian-based political action committee supporting Obama, recently criticized the joke McCain made at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally encouraging Cindy to enter the topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest. The McCain spokesman Brian Rogers brought out the bottomless excuse, responding with asperity that McCain's character had been "tested and forged in ways few can fathom."
When the Obama crowd was miffed to learn that McCain was in a motorcade rather than in a "cone of silence" while Obama was being questioned by Rick Warren, Nicolle Wallace of the McCain camp retorted, "The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous."
When Obama chaffed McCain for forgetting how many houses he owns, Rogers huffed, "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years - in prison."
As Sam Stein notes in The Huffington Post: "The senator has even brought his military record into discussion of his music tastes. Explaining that his favorite song was 'Dancing Queen' by Abba, he offered that his knowledge of music 'stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile.' 'Dancing Queen,' however, was produced in 1975, eight years after McCain's plane was shot down."