I have been waiting for this question to be asked of Senator John McCain. Do you really think we could have won the Vietnam war? Oh you think this is dwelling on ancient history? I think not. it’s directly relevant to the claim he makes running for president. That he has the experience necessary to lead us in current and future foreign entanglements.

Joe Conason on Salon gets into it . . .

What John McCain didn’t learn in Vietnam | Salon:

Nobody has denigrated the service of John McCain or his suffering in captivity as a prisoner of North Vietnam, as much as his supporters wish to pretend that someone did. Nobody has denied that his valor in captivity offers insight into his character. But so far almost nobody has asked the most important question about McCain’s military experience, which is how his past might influence his future as president.

The most pertinent issue is not what McCain did or didn’t do during the war in Vietnam, but what he learned from that searing, incredibly bloody and wholly unnecessary failure of U.S. policy. Clearly he learned that torture is morally wrong, illegal and counterproductive, and he has spoken with great moral authority on that issue. But listening to him now and over the past decade or so, he also seems not to have learned why that war itself was a tragic mistake — and why we needed to leave Vietnam long before we did.

The whole piece is here.