Doctor Phillip Butler is a 1961 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former light-attack carrier pilot. In 1965 he was shot down over North Vietnam where he spent eight years as a prisoner of war.
After his repatriation in 1973 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at San Diego and became a Navy Organizational Effectiveness consultant. He completed his Navy career in 1981 as a professor of management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
John McCain has been exploiting his prisoner of war experience every
chance he gets. He has used this story to justify everything from not
knowing how many homes he has to his healthcare plan to his marital
infidelities to his taste in music. The McCain campaign is even using
his POW story in paid ads. But now a veteran who was a prisoner with
McCain in Vietnam is explaining loud and clear that being a POW does not
qualify McCain to lead our country.
We are sure this video will draw an onslaught of right-wing attacks, but
we bring it to you because it is our job to continue to convey the truth
together and give these issues national attention. As Dr. Butler has
said, McCain does not have the temperament to have his finger near the
red button. Get this video to everyone you know-friends, family members,
coworkers, and especially those who don’t share your political views.
The video is designed to reach them. Get it on your social networking
sites like Digg. And get it to every blog, newspaper, and TV station
that has ever overplayed McCain’s POW story. It is time to fight back
with truth!
The mainstream press has already begun to call out McCain for overusing
his POW story. And it’s cut across all political persuasions.
* “Whether he’s deflecting criticism over his
health-care plan or
mocking a tribute to the Woodstock music festival, Senator John McCain
has a trump card: the Hanoi Hilton. – Edwin Chen, Bloomberg
* “Noun, Verb, POW” – Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic Monthly
* “The McCain campaign’s constant invocation of the
candidate’s POW
past is weird bordering on irrational…” – Ana Marie Cox, TIME
* “I think they are going to it way too many times.” –
Howard
Fineman, Newsweek
Remember how Joe Biden got the press to refer to Rudy Giuliani as “A
noun, a verb, and 9/11”? Well, let’s actually take Andrew Sullivan’s
lead here and get the media to boil McCain down to a similar phrase: “A
noun, a verb, and POW.” Considering how often the McCain campaign
invokes his POW story, isn’t that what they’re already doing?
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