More McCain Plagiarism?

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 12:02 PM on August 18, 2008.

In December, when most of the leading presidential candidates were releasing holiday-themed ads, John McCain -- who's "reluctant" to talk about his service during Vietnam -- was able to combine two messages in a single campaign commercial: "One night, after being mistreated as a POW, a guard loosened the ropes binding me, easing my pain. On Christmas, that same guard approached me, and without saying a word, he drew a cross in the sand. We stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas."

It's a story McCain has not only put in his ads, but has also repeated for several years, including over the weekend, at the forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church.

Yesterday, however, questions arose about its veracity:

According to a very persuasive Daily Kos diary, the anecdote McCain told about a North Vietnamese prison guard making a cross in the dirt as a sign of solidarity -- or as he said, "just two Christians worshiping together" -- is very similar to a story about Alexander Solzhenitsyn and his times in the Soviet Gulags.

"As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible."

Steven Waldman notes that McCain's recounting of this story has changed over the years and "has gradually morphed from being about the humanity of the guard to being about the Christian faith of the guard and John McCain."

Is it possible that Solzhenitsyn and McCain had extremely similar experiences? Of course it is. Coincidences happen.

But there's reason to be suspicious about whether McCain's powerful anecdote is apocryphal.

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the former lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, The American Prospect, the Huffington Post, the Guardian, Crooks & Liars, Salon.com’s War Room, Political Wire, and Seven Days.