We are all POWs now

I see no reason why John McCain should accrue all the rhetorical gain from the years he spent in Hanoi, cleansing humanity’s sins not living in a house. That’s why, when the new semester begins in a week or so, I’ll be taking every opportunity to remind students and colleagues that because John McCain was a prisoner of war, their complaints and criticisms will not be taken seriously. When students, for example, wonder why their papers have not been marked in their usual, borderline-timely fashion, I’ll explain that like John McCain — who was once a POW — I did not have a pen handy, and I was probably thinking about more important things. Or when colleagues wonder how I could have “forgotten” to attend yet another faculty senate meeting to help ratify decisions that have already been made by our natural and bureaucratic superiors, I will remind them that John McCain once missed five years of meetings when he was being held captive in Hanoi. I also hope to use John McCain’s POW status to relieve me of cat-litter-scooping duties as well as the burden of paying for my own drinks, and to immunize me against the usual accusations of slothfulness and general moral dissipation. I suppose if I were running for some kind of public office, this might constitute a decent campaign strategy.