http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/fellow-pow-mccains-war-pa_n_123128.html
Fellow POW: McCain's War Past Makes Him A Presidential Risk
September 2, 2008 08:35 AM
One of John McCain's fellow prisoners of war is making an argument that few if any Democrats are willing to air publicly: the Senator's experience in Vietnam does not qualify him to be president. In fact, it may be a reason to vote against him.
Phillip Butler, a highly decorated combat veteran who was imprisoned for eight years in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton," is proclaiming in a brand new political film that McCain's time as a POW makes him a medical and temperamental risk to be handed the responsibilities of commander in chief.
"I think I can say with authority that the Prisoner Of War experience is not a good prerequisite for President," says Butler. "John McCain is not somebody I would like to see with his finger near the red button."
He only goes on from there. "He was very sensitive and touchy and just easy to anger," Butler says of the Arizona Republican. "John McCain's temperament makes it clear that he is not cut out to be President of the United States."
The commentary comes in a short interview that Butler conducted with Brave New Films, a progressive media outlet that has produced some of the sharpest and most personal attacks on the Republican candidate. And it has the potential to re-introduce one of the campaign's touchier topics. Democrats, with the notable exception of Gen. Wesley Clark, have shied away from directly stating that being a POW is not, in and of itself, a qualification to serve as commander in chief. In the wake of his comments, Clark was publicly rebuked by Barack Obama. Since then, Democrats have been silent on the matter even as McCain and his aides have increasingly resorted to his Vietnam past as a way to rationalize policies or dismiss character criticisms.
Butler, in his Brave New Films debut, demonstrates no such self-restrictions. Pointing to the health risks faced by former POWs, he raises several concerns about a potential McCain presidency.
"The data show that the Prisoner Of War group are dying at an earlier age and that we suffer lots of residual things that the non-P.O.W. group really doesn't have to deal with," he says. "And it's imperative that we have someone who is healthy and can stand the rigors of that job."
Butler, a peace and justice activist with Veterans for Peace, has expressed similar reservations about McCain before. In a Military Times op-ed in late March 2008, he wrote:
"I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate."
The Brave New Films video is likely to bring Butler's comments to an new and much wider audience. The group's political action committee is slated to send Butler's testimony to half a million people and is prepping for a national TV ad buy.
The McCain campaign did not return immediate request for comment.
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