Here's the original source document rather than an insipid snarky Gawker article.

Thanks, Graham - the source document features racist comments that Gawker didn't mention.

What?? How did POW McCain know they were gay if they weren’t gay “toward him”?

Call me crazy but I know plenty of folks to be gay without them being gay "toward me"

Homosexuality was still considered a psychological ailment at the time, right? So saying that the guards were gay was probably as unremarkable as saying they were sadists -- just another on a list of damning character flaws.

One might perhaps forgive a POW for ascribing unsavory or unflattering traits to his jailers. Of course, now that McCain wants to be President, what he now thinks about gays is highly relevant. As is the question of whether he will be carrying any personal grudges with him into the most powerful political office in the world.

He sure seems to bring up his time in the Hanoi Hilton an awful lot, so I don't think the question of whether he's fully over that traumatic experience should be out-of-bounds.

But I know lots of gays who plan to stay home or vote for McCain, because they are mad that Hillary didn't get the nom. America deserves what it gets.

@3

The fact of the matter, here, is that none of them were gay. He's just being a crazy grandpa. (Fabricating everything with touches of bigotry and a dash of Reagalzheimer's)

$$Money Quote from original article$$

"One time I had a hell of a hemorrhoid and I stewed about it for about three days. Finally, I said, "Look, McCain, you've never known of a single guy who died of a hemorrhoid." So I just ignored it as best I could, and after a few months it went away"

profiles in asshatery

dead end issue

you CANNOT attack a war hero who was beaten, starved, caged for YEARS

and then expect him to recount his experience like it was every day

the American public will not reward Obama folks if that is what they are trying to do

@5: You know lots of gays like this? Really? How many, would you say? 10? 15? 175? All willing to give up the right to vote, or to vote out of revenge? Do they have meetings to discuss their views, to nurture support from other discontented gays? Do they have a vast network of resources, blogs, campaign gear, etc?

Or could it be . . . no, no, couldn't be . . . but I must ask . . . could it be you're full of shit?

@5: no, you don't.

As for McCain, they were beating him with sticks and whips -- of COURSE they were gay. That's what gays do.

dead end issue

you CANNOT attack a war hero who was beaten, starved, caged for YEARS

and then expect him to recount his experience like it was every day

the American public will not reward Obama folks if that is what they are trying to do

if it is proven somehow that mccain is lying, then this will be a huge win for the dems. but i just don't see how that is possible. because of that, this will play out in mccain's favor in the mainstream... i mean, his original story has them holding church service even though they got beat for it. i could be wrong, though.

Why would there be any less Queer stuff going on in that camp then a similiar number of men gathered at random and forced to be together from any culture in the world?

Of course the were sucking and fucking as much as they could ... most of them

Of course the camp commanders had butt boys, American and Asian, that they shared and partied with.

Of course, it is the prison model by a factor of three or four.

MSM is the perfect term - and since the officers in charge held all the cards, I doubt they were shy about their pretty butt boys and good opium.

Oh, I forgot, gay is only allowed in modern America defined by shopping, drinking, rainbow jewelry, and keeping skinny. Get a clue, you all.

So, in other words, younger McCain was so undesirable none of his "gay" captors wanted to fuck him. Got it.

One thing that's bothered me throughout this whole race; McCain was imprisoned and tortured for half a decade - how is it that he has no PTSD?

If you've ever watched any interviews with combat vets(especially 'nam vets), or even talked with one of our soldiers who did a tour in Vietnam, they're the first to admit that the situations there f'ed with their mind in irreversible manners.

We often see news reports of veterans who recall the 'flashbacks' of these terrible times and then 'go crazy' with rash and/or illegal actions that sometimes involve the killing of innocents at their hands.

If McCain was so traumatized by his experience, why would we even consider electing him? Why are we not hammering him with the concerns that his tortured soul could lead to a mental meltdown in office?

Surely, the abuse that he withstood at the hands of his tormentors (be they homosexual or not)would cause any one of us to lose our shit. Why is half of America willing to risk granting this man the greatest amount of power on the planet?

I fully respect him for fighting for our country, as I do all other military veterans. However, McCain's brain is a potential mine field - ask any vet who went through anything close to what he did. His selective memory is only the tip of the iceberg. When will the media start interviewing psychiatrists to really discuss his mental stability? 2.5 months till election day folks...

Truth be told, for you above and your for shit post, John Mc Cain was RAPED a lot by his captors.

Nice white young and good looking American fly boy officer ass, noted family, you bet, with sticks, guns, any number of humiliation gadgets, and and a big number of guards cocks.

Rape, not fucking at all. You are a stupid hot house nit wit.

This brings up the importance of digging up all dirt - from the source documents - on John "America Hates Civilians" McCain.

Because you know his comrade Karl Marx Rove and the rest of the krewe are going to go as dirty as they can.

Did anyone else notice he's surrounding himself with really really old people - you know, 70s, 80s - to try to make himself look better?

#6: Yeah, but this quote was from 1973, right? The Pre-Crazy Grandpa Years (now available as a box set!) Released while the war was still ongoing. So portraying the North Vietnamese as sadistic anti-Christian homos would have still had considerable propaganda value as well. Plus, his hatred for them would still have been very fresh.

I agree with the comments saying that it's probably a losing bet to appear to be picking on a guy who was tortured for his country. But there's got to be a way to pose the PTSD question if he keeps bringing this shit up every minute. If he wants people to believe he's moved on and that he isn't seething with white-hot anger and fantasies of revenge every minute of every day, he needs to quit referencing it as the major defining event of his life.

Just to ad some perspective to all this rattle trap posting, John McCain in those Naval pilot days was a dish.

A ten by any measure, and in dress whites would be the talk of any bar in Seattle or SFO or NYC on any night.

Look at the old pix. He was a dish fifty years ago.

Need to run a race based on Obama's messages, not on random attacks from political neophytes which mean nothing ... counter Mc Cain on policy ... he stinks on most issues, and not the least is that he will use nukes.

Will - are those really old people still allowed to vote? God, how stupid he is.

Playing to non voters, all those old people.

And surely , none of the old people donate money, do they?

There is a rumor that there are millions and millions of them in Florida, Arizona, and California. Really? Is that true? Sun birds or something.

Oh, dear, I thought touring high schools and scout camps and skate parks is how you win elections ...

PTSD is not a good topic for the campaign. Impuning all POWs as mental cripples and social pariahs... not really going to create a real sense of patriotism from Obama.

@16 So the hemmoroid story is probably true, then?

@11,

Why not? Americans rewarded Bush for the lazy, 4F assholes at the Republican Convention wearing Purple Heart bandaids. Republicans turned Kerry's war record, with no evidence that he lied about a damn thing, against him. McCain is lying through his teeth and pulling the POW card whenever he's criticized for anything. His service and his lies about it are fair game.

@21, robo, I'm not trying to categorize all POW's (thankfully, I've never been one, so of course, I can't know exactly what each one goes through) - however, my point is: the McCain camp consistently brings up his war time trials, increasingly emphasizing the frustrations and physical traumas he faced - why can we not hear about the possible mental anguish that he continues(quite obviously) to exhibit? If folks are going to nitpick every aspect of Obama's personality, lifestyle and decision making abilities - why are we not affording the same criticism to McCain. If he doesn't have mental issues, then fine, he doesn't. If he does, however, shouldn't his "friends" know about this before making a decision in November?

mccain will never be asked by a MSM reporter or anyone at any public forum during the remainder of this campaign to defend these comments or the plagaraized cross story.

whereas obama will have to say over & over that his is not a muslim.

And the crumbling of empire will continue.