McCain’s “war hero” free ride over? LA Times opens the door

(7 pm – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Yes, they went there: the LA Times is featuring on its homepage a major story examining a portion of John McCain’s military record:

Mishaps mark John McCain’s record as naval aviator

Here’s the subhead:

Three crashes early in his career led Navy officials to question or fault his judgment. A Times review of his record suggests he was cocky, occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits.

The once-sacred-cow, the Time Period Of Which We Dare Not Speak, is now fair game for the corporate media.

This cannot be good news for McCain.

The story opens with – surprise! – a whopper told by McCain that was soundly refuted by his superiors:

McCain recounted the accident [in which he crashed an AD-6 Skyraider near Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1960] decades later in his autobiography. “The engine quit while I was practicing landings,” he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure.

The 23-year-old junior lieutenant wasn’t paying attention and erred in using “a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn,” investigators concluded.

The crash was one of three early in McCain’s aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials.

The story also tells of McCain’s crash of a T-2 jet trainer near Cape Charles, Va., in 1965:

In a report dated Jan. 18, 1966, the Naval Aviation Safety Center said it could not determine the cause of the accident or corroborate McCain’s account of an explosion in the engine. A close examination of the engine found “no discrepancies which would have caused or contributed to engine failure or malfunction.”

Interestingly, for some unknown reason, the report was revised:

About two weeks after issuing its report, the safety center revised its findings and said the accident resulted from the failure or malfunction of an “undetermined component of the engine.

Huh. An “undetermined component” of the engine failed? Just how does one come to that conclusion? “Um, we examined the engine and couldn’t find anything that had failed, but since we’ve decided, in spite of our earlier examination of the engine, to take the pilot’s word for it and agree that something in the engine must’ve failed, that was the best language we could come up with.”

Anyone who would dare suggest that Admiral McCain might have had something to do with the revision of that report most assuredly hates America and pals around with terrorists.

McCain’s entire military record is believed by some to run to at least 636 pages. Only 19 of those pages have been released. What the balance of those records – like his as-yet-unreleased medical records – might show is anybody’s guess – but until now, to even hint at questioning those records was taboo among the corporate media.

The Times story is a major breach in the hitherto impenetrable wall that had been built around McCain’s war record. Shouting, “But he’s a war hero!” evidently will no longer be enough to satisfy those looking for the truth.

Also available in Orange