“She [Laura] graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1968 and had been known in her college days as a go-to-girl for dime bags of marijuana. ‘She not only smoked dope,’ said public relations executive Bob Nash, an Austin friend of many in Laura’s SMU class, ‘but she sold dope.’ “

And, while I’m on the subject of passes. What about John McCain’s signed confession while he was a POW?

The subject of those confessions is a very, very tricky one and it needs to be understood that no one in the US Military would hold that against McCain. He might be an embarrassment of riches for his love of lobbyists, his “straight talk” that leads to Charles Keating’s cell door and a plethora of other things but what he said or did while in Hanoi are not and should not be subject to second guessing on either side of the aisle.

I am so not standing up for McCain, but rather making the point that those confessions were utterly coerced, often at the end of hours of torture and physical violence and utter depravation that might have caused anyone to sign anything. The men who were incarcerated in the Hanoi prisons endured the unendurable for long periods and did so with honor and the dignity to return home knowing that they had measured up to the Code of Conduct to the best of their ability. Young aviators who go through SERE training (based in no small part on some of the experiences of the Vietnam-era captives) learn that if the choice is between giving up your life and signing a paper, sign the paper. You are no good to yourself, your fellow POWs or anyone else dead. Being “John Wayne” in SERE school will get you bounced quicker than you can say your own name.

So I would ask that you leave out whatever “confessions” McCain signed as a political point-scoring mechanism. There are plenty of legitimate areas to score points on him… lying, cheating on campaing finance and Keating among others.