John McCain, Liar (yet another report necessitated by brazen liar John McCain)

McCain: "Gotcha, Suckers!"

That's it. John McShameless has officially jumped the shark. Wikipedia defines Jumping the Shark as follows:

Jumping the shark is a colloquialism used by U.S. TV critics and fans to denote that point in a TV show or movie series' history where the plot veers off into ridiculous story lines or out-of-the-ordinary characterizations, undergoing too many changes to retain the original appeal of the series. Shows that have "jumped the shark" are typically deemed to have passed their peak as after this point critical fans can point to a noticeable decline in the show's overall quality.

The term is an allusion to a scene in a 1977 episode of the TV series Happy Days when the popular character Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli literally jumps over a shark while water skiing. The scene was considered so preposterous that many believed it to be an attempt at reviving the declining ratings of the flagging show. Indeed, not only was Happy Days reflecting the superstardom of real-life shark-jumper Evel Knievel in the episode, but the series was wildly successful in 1977. Happy Days was the second most popular show on television in that year, behind its spin-off, Laverne & Shirley.

Jump-the-shark moments may be scenes like the one described above that finally convince viewers that the show has fundamentally and permanently strayed from its original premise. In those cases they are viewed as a desperate and futile attempt to keep a series fresh in the face of declining ratings. In other cases the departure or replacement of a main cast member or character or a significant change in setting changes a critical dynamic of the show. These changes are often attempts to attract their fans' waning attention with over-the-top statements or increasingly overt appeals to sex or violence.

The term has also evolved to describe other areas of pop culture including movie series, musicians, actors or authors for whom a drastic change was seen as the beginning of the end or marking the moment the subject is "past its peak." When referring to celebrities, the related term jumping the couch is often used if the moment is a personal act of "going off the deep end".

How else do we explain the latest lie from McPander's lips? In this one, McSwine steals a "cross in the dirt" story originally told by Alexander Solzhenitsyn based on his time as a prisoner of the Soviet Union.

I know what you're thinking: "Hot Rod, aren't you discounting the very real possibility that John McCain installed a flux capacitor into a DeLorean and traveled back in time to visit a Soviet Gulag and tell the story to Solzhenitsyn, immediately after which point the following exchange took place:

Solzhenitsyn: Wow, really?

McCain: Yep, that's exactly how it happened.

Solzhenitsyn: That's really good shit man. Say, on the off-chance that I can ever get together a story about my time in this Gulag, would you mind if I kind of adapted your experience to my own, so as to give my narrative a pivotal, transformational moment. Because I gotta tell you, there ain't shit happening here that could compare to that "cross in the dirt" story.

McCain: Well, I don't see why not. It's not like anybody would call me out for ripping the story off from you. But if anyone did, I'll just tell them about that DeLorean parked over there. The media will buy it - they love me. War hero and all. Beaten for five-and-a-half years, you know....

Think about it Hot Rod!"

Touche! You got me there. In making the mistake of getting all caught up in facts and reality, I had not thought of that possible explanation, which the mainstream media would buy hook, line, and sinker.

But on the factual side of the ledger is the following, from the Jed Report:

For starters, here's precedent for McCain distorting his history as a POW and for plagiarizing material.

1. During a June visit to Pittsburgh, he retold a POW story involving what he said was his favorite football team, but swapped out the Packers in favor of the hometown favorite Steelers.
2. He recently defended his preference for ABBA's "Dancing Queen" by citing his POW experience, saying that he has not been interested in music published since then. Dancing Queen wasn't published until two years after he returned from Vietnam.
3. In a recent speech on Georgia, McCain plagiarized at least three passages from Wikipedia's history of the country.

As for the story itself, the details of McCain's version of Solzhenitsyn's "Cross in the Dirt" story don't add up. Specifically:

1. As first reported by kos diarist rickrocket, McCain's story is nearly identical to a story told by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.
2. In McCain's version of the story, a guard who had befriended him later drew the cross in the ground.
3. According to McCain's 1973 retelling of his experience, there was only one guard who he considered human, and that guard befriended him in 1969. (kos diarist Calouste made this connection, which extends into the next two points.)
4. This means that McCain's Christmas story would have taken place in 1969.
Between when he met that guard and Christmas of 1969, McCain changed prisons. Unless the guard followed him to the new prison, McCain's story is not true.

There is also a ton of circumstantial evidence raising doubts about McCain's story:

1. In McCain's early stories about his POW years, he made no mention of the story.
At a 1974 prayer breakfast arranged by Ronald Reagan, McCain did not tell the Solzhenitsyn story. He told a completely different one about a prisoner scratching a prayer into a wall. It is unimaginable that he would not have told the "Cross in the Dirt" story if it were true. (kos diarist TomP linked to another version of the prayer breakfast story, but the link was a dead link.)
2. There is no evidence McCain ever told this story before 1999.
McCain's story has shifted subtly over the years since he first told it in 1999.
3. McCain (or, more likely, his ghost writer Mark Salter) is a huge fan of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.

Also, as pointed out here, McScam's 1973 account of his time as a POW contains no reference to this touching exchange with the guard.

In a later post today, Andrew Sullivan explores the topic more, and questions whether this remarkable event ever happened to anyone, or if it is part of some kind of right-wing mythology for rent. He concludes,

There is no way to know for sure what happened between two people in a prison camp in an incident to which no one else was a witness more than a quarter century ago. And it's perfectly possible that all of it is true, if muddled. But when a candidate tells a story that doesn't really add up with his previous accounts, and when he runs a campaign ad based on that story whose imagery is closer to someone else's account than his own, when a life changing moment is forgotten for a quarter of a century until a critical campaign when an appeal to conservative Christians was vital, the question is worth fleshing out - and I will gladly air any evidence that emerges in McCain's defense.

John McCain will literally say anything the circumstances call for. What a shitball.