Richard Cohen: Overlook McCain's gaffes and flip flops because he was a former prisoner of war

In his article in the Washington Post, Richard Cohen lists 6 things that John McCain has recently flip flopped on. They are:

• Immigration
  
• Tax cuts for the wealthy
  
• Campaign spending (as it applies to use of his wife's corporate airplane)
  
• Offshore drilling
  
• He has denounced then embraced certain ministers of medieval views
  
• Changed his mind about the Confederate flag
  

Actually in all due respect to John Cohen, McCain has flip flopped on 42 issues! So, Mr. Cohen was being very kind to John McCain by listing just 6 of the flip flops! However, the flip flops are not the point I am getting at for this blog. The point is, he goes on to defend McCain and all of his gaffes and flip flops because:

McCain is a known commodity. It’s not just that he’s been around a long time and staked out positions antithetical to those of his Republican base. It’s also — and more important — that we know his bottom line. As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over. This — not just his candor and nonstop verbosity on the Straight Talk Express — is what commends him to so many journalists.

Obama might have a similar bottom line, core principles for which, in some sense, he is willing to die. If so, we don’t know what they are. Nothing so far in his life approaches McCain’s decision to refuse repatriation as a POW so as to deny his jailers a propaganda coup. In fact, there is scant evidence the Illinois senator takes positions that challenge his base or otherwise threaten him politically. That’s why his reversal on campaign financing and his transparently false justification of it matter more than similar acts by McCain.

So let me get this straight. It is OK for McCain to be unclear about issues. It's OK for McCain to confuse the ethnic groups fighting for control in Iraq. It is OK for McCain to endorse Bush policy that has been detrimental to the citizens of not only the U.S., but all in the Middle East as well! He is saying give the guy a break because he was a prisoner of war!

How far did this get John Kerry in 04? He had metals for his service in past wars. Yet the Right swift boated him every chance they got!

I feel for John McCain. What he went through as a prisoner was something I do not ever want to experience on a personal level. That being said, I also want someone in office that has not changed his views on important items some 42 times. How many more times will he change? What is going to stop him, if he gets elected to change his mind again on promises he is making to the American people?

We are suppose to overlook all of this because Mr. Cohen says John was a former prisoner of war?