Mark Nickolas, Political Base, 17 October 2008
The blogosphere is abuzz right now over the discovery that a POW story told by John McCain (R) at Saturday night’s presidential forum is eerily similar to one told by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his famous book The Gulag Archipelago which chronicled his time in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s and 1960s.
Here’s what McCain told Saddleback Church’s Pastor Rick Warren last night — according to the unofficial transcript released by the church:
Updated 21 August:
McCain’s “cross-in-the-dirt” story couldn’t have been plagiarised from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s work since according to his biographer, Michael Scammell, the episode “appears nowhere in his published writing.“
Andrew Sullivan investigated: parts one | two
McCain seems to have dodged intense mainstream scrutiny of this POW tale. Another story he told during his rehearsed performance for Saddleback Church may finally cause him trouble.
John Hawkins: Cindy McCain Should Know Better