but the media will continue to let this happen

TIME: "The McCain campaign's constant invocation of the candidate's POW past is weird bordering on irrational"

Ana Marie Cox for TIME:

The McCain campaign's constant invocation of the candidate's POW past is weird bordering on irrational: yesterday, Nicolle Wallace used it as evidence that McCain didn't "cheat" at Saddleback. By a VERY generous interpretation, she could have meant that POWs don't cheat. Or that once you've been a POW, you've been through so much you're above cheating. Or maybe you can't accuse a POW of cheating unless you're a POW.

Today, spokesman Brian Rogers took the same tack against the "housing crisis" they currently face: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison." So is he arguing that we shouldn't begrudge McCain his multiple house because he once lived in an awful prison? Is he saying POWs deserve multiple houses (and you thought Obama was pro-nanny-state!)? Or maybe he's saying that McCain's several houses are really just prisons... of the soul. Man is entombed by his possessions, it's true.

It's a head-spinning non sequitur, designed to distract us from something mildly troubling with the assertion of something impressive.

(Americablog)