Pooh-Pooh

"I Like People That Weren't Captured, Okay?" Trump Pooh-Poohs McCain's Vietnam Service

By Tim Murphy

"Tinted meatball" Donald Trump attacked the Vietnam service of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at a social conservative confab in Iowa on Saturday, boasting that the 2008 Republican presidential nominee was only considered a war hero "because he was captured."

"I like people that weren't captured, okay?," he told moderator Frank Luntz.

Trump, who missed the Vietnam War after getting a series of student and medical deferments, has now left an opening for the Republican presidential candidates who trail him in the polls (which is most of them) to get a few clean jabs in. But it's not as simple as it sounds. McCain is not a popular figure among conservative activists, and the entire appeal of Trump is that he says things like this about people that conservative activists don't like. (It certainly wouldn't be the first time conservative voters overlooked a gratuitous shot at a candidate's war record because they didn't like his politics.)

(Trump is of course not the only one who was 'lucky' to get deferments, ex-Vice President Channy got 5, plus most of the war-hawk people in the Bushy cabinet also got deferments. Of course Bushy got an easy slot in the Texas air-guard and just screwed around for a couple of years. The rich seem to get the most deferments or best spots it seems, must just be lucky...)