"Slew Ably?" All due respect, McCain got shot down and spent most of the war as a prisoner.

Now, I don't for one minute believe that his misfortune had anything to do with his relative competance as a warrior or, more specifically, as a pilot. Just dumb, bad, luck. Also, his unfortunate experience and his ability to survive through it speak well for him as a human person, and make him a credible opponent of the Bush administration's desire to legitimize torture.

There were plenty of GIs, many of them reluctant conscripts, who slew many more Vietnamese persons more ably than did John McCain. You can find some of them living under overpasses in every American city. Or perhaps you'd like to meet my friend Jane, who as a 17-year-old high school dropout earned a battlefield commission while racking up a record of 28 "personal kills" in Vietnam. Back then, of course, Jane was Eugene; (s)he is going through gender change at age 60 because, as a male, he was simply too screwed up, too mean and angry, to live.