No need to lend this much credence. Sure, he’s a MOH winner and possibly the most decorated serviceman since Douglas MacArthur, but he’s said some controversial things in the past and therefore can’t be trusted. Unlike, say, McCain’s nutroots detractors.

So I asked: When was the first time you heard McCain tell this story? His response: “I heard that story in 1970, 1971—back in that time frame. Anybody who says it’s not true is full of…” Here he used some salty language.

That makes two POWs who claim to have heard McCain tell the story during or shortly after his captivity. Are we done with this now or is the next move to find a POW who never heard him mention it and use that to try to prove the negative? There are, after all, more fruitful smears to pursue. If you’re hungry for more, here’s an interesting snippet from the new Bloggingheads in which Althouse and Robert Wright speculate as to why McCain didn’t mention the story publicly sooner. Maybe because he didn’t realize how affecting people found it? Or maybe, as Althouse says, because his view on witnessing changed over time?