By KARL ROVE
April 30, 2008

It came to me while I was having dinner
with Doris Day. No, not that Doris Day. The Doris
Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Medal of Honor
recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John
McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.
> >>
> >>
As we ate near the Days' home in
Florida recently, I heard things about Sen. McCain that were
deeply moving and politically troubling. Moving because
they told me things about him the American people need to know.
> >>
And troubling because it is clear that
Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run
for president in history.
> >>
> >>
When it comes to choosing a president,
the American people want to know more about a
candidate than policy positions.
They want to know about character, the
values ingrained in his
heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they
will want to know more about him personally than he has
been willing to reveal.
> >>
> >>
Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories
Americans should hear.
> >>
It involves what happened to him after
escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war.
When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm
and said, 'I told you I would make you a
cripple.'
> >>
The break was designed to shatter Mr.
Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that
one day he would return to the United States and be able
to fly again.
> >>
To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left
part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a
misshapen cast.
This was done so that the arm would heal
at 'a goofy angle,' as Mr. Day explained. Had it
done so, he never would have flown again.
> >>
But it didn't heal that way, because
of John McCain.
Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain
and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard
to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of
their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into
place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own
wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in
place.
> >>
> >> Years later, Air Force surgeons examined
> >> Mr. Day and complimented the treatment he'd gotten from
> >> his captors.
> >> Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain
> >> who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.
> >>
> >> Another story I heard over dinner with the Days
> >> involved Mr. McCain serving as one of the
> >> three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point,
> >> after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had
> >> found himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi
> >> Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help
> >> administer religious services to the
> >> other prisoners.
> >>
> >> Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still
> >> vividly recalls
> >> Mr. McCain's sermons. 'He
> >> remembered the Episcopal liturgy,' Mr. Day says,
> >> 'and sounded like a bona fide preacher.'
> >> One of Mr. McCain's first sermons
> >> took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, 'render
> >> unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is
> >> God's.'
> >> Mr. McCain said he and his fellow
> >> prisoners shouldn't ask God to free them, but to help
> >> them become the best
> >> people they could be while serving as
> >> POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who
> >> would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.
> >>
> >> Another McCain story, somewhat better
> >> known, is about
> >> the Vietnamese practice of torturing him
> >> by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind
> >> him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly
> >> busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain
> >> can't raise his arms over his head. One night, a
> >> Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end
> >> of his watch to tighten them again so no one
> >> would notice.
> >>
> >> Shortly after, on Christmas Day, the
> >> same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and
> >> drew a cross in the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain
> >> later said that when he returned to Vietnam for the first
> >> time after the war, the only person he really wanted to
> >> meet was that guard.
> >>
> >> Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain
> >> stubbornly
> >> refusing to accept special treatment or
> >> curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill.
> >> Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda
> >> victory of the
> >> son and grandson of Navy admirals
> >> accepting special treatment. 'He wasn't
> >> corruptible then, Mr. Day says, 'and he's not
> >> corruptible today.'
> >>
> >> The stories told to me by the Days
> >> involve more than
> >> wartime valor.
> >>
> >> For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was
> >> visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when
> >> a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage
> >> could not provide the medical care needed to save her
> >> life, so Mrs. McCain
> >> brought the child home to America with
> >> her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked
> >> what all this was about.
> >>
> >> Mrs. McCain replied that the child
> >> desperately needed
> >> surgery and years of rehabilitation.
> >> 'I hope she can stay with us,' she told her
> >> husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their
> >> teenage daughter Bridget.
> >>
> >> I was aware of this story. What I did not
> >> know, and
> >> what I learned from Doris, is that there
> >> was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up
> >> being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.
> >>
> >> 'We were called at midnight by
> >> Cindy,' Wes Gullett remembers, and 'five days
> >> later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport
> >> wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip
> >> back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok
> >> airport.' Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr.
> >> Gullett told me, 'I never saw a hospital bill' for
> >> her care.
> >>
> >> A few, but not many, of the stories told
> >> to me by the Days have been written about, such as in
> >> Robert Timberg's 1996 book 'A Nightingale's
> >> Song. But Mr. McCain rarely refers to them on the campaign
> >> trail. There is something admirable in his reticence, but
> >> he needs to overcome it.
> >>
> >> Private people like Mr. McCain are rare
> >> in politics
> >> for a reason. Candidates who are
> >> uncomfortable sharing their interior lives limit their
> >> appeal. But if Mr. McCain is to win the election this
> >> fall, he has to open up.
> >>
> >> Americans need to know about his vision for the
> >> nation's future, especially his
> >> policy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to
> >> learn about the moments in his life that shaped him. Mr.
> >> McCain cannot make this a biography-only campaign - but he
> >> can't afford to make it a biography-free campaign
> >> either. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never
> >> know the experiences of his life that show his character,
> >> integrity and essential decency.
> >>
> >> These qualities mattered in America's
> >> first president
> >> and will matter as Americans decide on
> >> their 44th president.
> >>
> >> Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and
> >> deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.
> >>

> >> If you agree with me that this needs to
> >> be sent to
> >> everyone you know, so they can make
> >> better decisions as to who will be their next President,
> >> please send it to all your friends, and to those who
> >> won't get this in their local Press!

Verily, verily, Bravo!

Because Rove is the person we trust...

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It occurs to me that there is some involvement in the Ketting Saving and loan scandel... involving McCain......don't remember what it was, but that there was some involvement....