McCain Presidency Touted by Vietnamese Former Keeper
by C. L. Cook
The BBC's Andrew Harding reports from Vietnam his conversation with a former "Hanoi Hilton" jail keeper who, Harding says, supports the presidential run of his former inmate, John McCain.

 

Tran Trong Duyet is quoted by BBC News, speaking from his home in Haiphong, about his "good friend" John McCain, while flipping through sentimental black and white photos taken of the two while McCain was a P.O.W.

The cordial relationship Tran describes runs counter to the familiar McCain campaign narrative of an embattled Navy pilot, shot down and taken prisoner over enemy territory, bravely resisting torture and refusing a deal his super-wealthy family arranged for his freedom to instead stay in Hanoi and serve as a Stoic, selfless inspiration to his fellows.

 

 

The feckless former prison guardian explains to Harding why he would vote for McCain, despite the senator's fabrications about the treatment he says he received while at Hoa Lo prison, saying;

 

• "We used to argue about the war - about whether it was right or wrong.  He is a very frank man, very conservative, and very loyal to his country and the American ideal. But I can confirm to you that we never tortured him. We never tortured any prisoners."

 

Harding speculates: "So is Mr Duyet implying that Senator McCain lied about his treatment at the Hanoi Hilton?"

 

• "He did not tell the truth," says Harding of Tran Trong Dueyet's response. Adding Tran's philosophical take on his poll favourite; "But I can somehow sympathise with him. He lies to American voters in order to get their support for his presidential election."

 

It's a long chalk from McCain's account, says the BBC, of "months of solitary confinement and systematic torture which drove him to try to kill himself."

• "I don't know how he'd react if he met me again," Mr. Duyet tells Andrew Harding finally.

More importantly for John McCain might be how the American electorate, sated as it is with serial government corruption scandals, rank corporate malfeasance, and a tanking economic order, reacts to the prospect of another somewhat less than honest, and certainly less heroic, man sitting in the White House.

 

 

 

 

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