PeterS

Give um hell buddy. Cancer doesn't know what it's up against...

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

The Song Bird of Hỏa Lò Prison has a brain tumor.... that would account for his un-American behavior. Too bad so many of the men he allowed to be tortured and murdered can not witness his end. I hope that they play his propaganda recording he made for the enemy at his funeral. Now the good state of Arizona can have a real representative in DC.

https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2017/07/19/mccain-diagnosed-with-brain-cancer/
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2016/08/09/mccains-victims-may-be-vindicated-by-hanoi-hilton-songbird-audio/

PeterS

Always the model of class Pennylynn. You never disappoint...

>>snip<<
TRUNEWS is run by a conspiracy theorist, Rick Wiles, who has been described as the “most out there bigot yet.” That description was in response to the End Times broadcaster’s claim that he was renouncing his American citizenship because of Marriage Equality.
>>end<<

Great source for your accusation....

Loki Loc: Georgia

Whazzup, Petey boy? You forgot something; that something being the next paragraph of the article you referenced.

"Still, the National Archives does show an entry on its website that appears to support Wiles’ and Johnson’s claims. The ADI is in the process of securing a copy of the recording from the National Archives."

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

You and I have a small misunderstanding, I do not care if I disappoint you. Perhaps.... TRUNEWS is run by a conspiracy theorist, but I was not using him as my source, I was using the recording embedded in the article.

John.Gault Loc: Hill Country. - Great Republic of Texas

Petey, my departed mother once told me that if you can't say something good about someone then you should keep your mouth shut. McCain diagnosed with brain cancer >------> GOOD! I will express the same sentiments should I get the same news about you. Of course we all know that one must have a brain in order for it to malnutrition.
Cheers

John.Gault Loc: Hill Country. - Great Republic of Texas

Dam auto correct, should say malfunction not malnutrition 🤷🏻‍♂️

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

I am not a fan of John McCain the politician, but my reasons have nothing to do with the abundance of lies/misinformation about his time as a POW. The following from Mike McGrath, then president of the NAM-POW Association settled it for me some time ago....

From NAM-POWs President Mike McGrath:

"I thought you needed to see a message that I sent to some folks who were establishing web pages with completely false stories which had been submitted to them as true stories. They agreed to stop after learning that they had received bogus information.

NAM-POW names of: Jerry Driscoll, Larry Carrigan, and A.J. Myers have been connected, falsely, with stories. If any of you see these false stories passed around the net from group to group, please send a copy of this message to the sender and try to get this nonsense and slander of McCain, Driscoll, Carrigan, and A.J stopped."

Thanks,

Mike McGrath, President of NAM-POWs
POW 30 June 67 to 4 March 73

Concerning the false stories of John McCain's conduct...Again, there are false stories floating around the net about McCain. He was never missing from our group for six months.

He never co-operated with the enemy.

We have dozens of us who lived with and around John for his entire time (10-26-67 to 14 March 73). Larry Carrigan, for one, lived with or near both John and Ted Guy. Larry says Ted would never make the statements which are being attributed to him ...and Ted can't set the record straight because he is dead.

We have dozens of roommates who will vouch for the loyalty and courage and conduct of John McCain.

Here is a more accurate story: John had both arms and at least one leg badly hurt on ejection. He was bayoneted near the groin by a soldier as they were pulling him from the lake. After three days of interrogations and no cooperation, he was near death. They found out his father was Admiral McCain. They stopped the interrogations, gave him medical care, brought in a French reporter (with camera), and let him make a statement to his family that he was alive and would recover and come home.

After laying off the rough stuff, and trying to get John to cooperate by the "good guy" treatment for a couple of weeks, they got pissed off that he would not give information or cooperate. So, they threw him in a cell with Bud Day (MOH recipient) and Maj Norris Overly. McCain was in danger of dying from maltreatment. Maj Overly had to nurse both men back to health.

From that point on, McCain resisted just as hard as any other POW. He went through the same interrogations and treatment. His roommates can testify to his valor and patriotism.

In short, I think that the slanderous reports by faceless people (and some are attributed to Ted Guy...which I doubt are true) are from the bunch who are really pissed off that McCain made a political decision to back Clinton when Clinton decided it was time for "normalization" of diplomatic and trade relations, and it was time to have Ambassadorial level representation. To many, that made John a traitor.

To most, it was just a political reality. It opened the door to better cooperation for a host of areas, including a full accounting of the POW/MIA issue (which is still an ongoing issue today. We have 2,060 yet to account for).

If you want to get the straight story on McCain's conduct, please contact his roommates. Start with the Honorable Orson Swindle at OrsonIII [at] aol.com. Thanks for helping shut down these Phony stories. Again, you can copy this paragraph if it will help.

Mike McGrath, President of NAM-POWs

Bottom line: Who are these guys who pretend to know who the POWs are, what we are, how we think and thought, how we conducted ourselves, what we said, what we did, or why we did whatever?

There are over 50 books written by or about us which pretty much detail our ordeal. For book list, see our web site at: www.nampows.org.

If that isn't enough, please contact us personally and get the straight story. Over 280 of our e-mail addresses are on the NAM-POW web site. We also list the 300 or so Phony POWs on the Hall of Shame. But please don't attribute anything to us that is not verified.

Thanks, Mike

For those with a genuine interest to find out about us, I suggest you get a very recently released book, 700 pages of hard hitting researched reality, "Honor Bound", by Frederick Kiley and Stuart Rochester (recently nominated for a Pulitzer for this work).

This by far is the most comprehensive work ever done on our ordeal. Do you want to find out the truth about the Cuban Program, the torture, the brutality, etc. Just pick up your phone and call the Naval Institute at: 1-800-233-8764.

Read this book first, then we'll talk to you about real POW experiences in Hanoi... not false stories of Hanoi."

You can find more information at the NAM POWs sites.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Also, from a former classmate and POW of McCains, and certainly no rabid supporter of the man...

By Phillip Butler / Military.com
August 20, 2008

John McCain is a long-time acquaintance of mine that goes way back to our time together at the U.S. Naval Academy and as Prisoners of War in Vietnam. He is a man I respect and admire in some ways. But there are a number of reasons why I will not vote for him for President of the United States.

When I was a Plebe (4th classman, or freshman) at the Naval Academy in 1957-58, I was assigned to the 17th Company for my four years there. In those days we had about 3,600 midshipmen spread among 24 companies, thus about 150 midshipmen to a company. As fortune would have it, John, a First Classman (senior) and his room mate lived directly across the hall from me and my two room mates. Believe me when I say that back then I would never in a million or more years have dreamed that the crazy guy across the hall would someday be a Senator and candidate for President!

John was a wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit and he was intelligent. But he was intent on breaking every USNA regulation in our 4 inch thick USNA Regulations book. And I believe he must have come as close to his goal as any midshipman who ever attended the Academy. John had me "coming around" to his room frequently during my plebe year. And on one occasion he took me with him to escape "over the wall" in the dead of night. He had a taxi cab waiting for us that took us to a bar some 7 miles away. John had a few beers, but forbid me to drink (watching out for me I guess) and made me drink cokes. I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he did get caught doing. In fact he barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.

People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always "No - John McCain was a POW with me." The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 1/2 years later, so he was a POW for 5 1/2 years. And we have our own seniority system, based on time as a POW.

John's treatment as a POW:

1) Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969. After September of 1969 the Vietnamese stopped the torture and gave us increased food and rudimentary health care. Several hundred of us were captured much earlier. I got there April 20, 1965 so my bad treatment period lasted 4 1/2 years. President Ho Chi Minh died on September 9, 1969, and the new regime that replaced him and his policies was more pragmatic. They realized we were worth a lot as bargaining chips if we were alive. And they were right because eventually Americans gave up on the war and agreed to trade our POW's for their country. A damn good trade in my opinion! But my point here is that John allows the media to make him out to be THE hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true, to further his political goals.

2) John was badly injured when he was shot down. Both arms were broken and he had other wounds from his ejection. Unfortunately this was often the case -- new POW's arriving with broken bones and serious combat injuries. Many died from their wounds. Medical care was non-existent to rudimentary. Relief from pain was almost never given and often the wounds were used as an available way to torture the POW. Because John's father was the Naval Commander in the Pacific theater, he was exploited with TV interviews while wounded. These film clips have now been widely seen. But it must be known that many POW's suffered similarly, not just John. And many were similarly exploited for political propaganda.

3) John was offered, and refused, "early release." Many of us were given this offer. It meant speaking out against your country and lying about your treatment to the press. You had to "admit" that the U.S. was criminal and that our treatment was "lenient and humane." So I, like numerous others, refused the offer. This was obviously something none of us could accept. Besides, we were bound by our service regulations, Geneva Conventions and loyalties to refuse early release until all the POW's were released, with the sick and wounded going first.

4) John was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for heroism and wounds in combat. This heroism has been played up in the press and in his various political campaigns. But it should be known that there were approximately 600 military POW's in Vietnam. Among all of us, decorations awarded have recently been totaled to the following: Medals of Honor -- 8, Service Crosses -- 42, Silver Stars -- 590, Bronze Stars -- 958 and Purple Hearts -- 1,249. John certainly performed courageously and well. But it must be remembered that he was one hero among many -- not uniquely so as his campaigns would have people believe.

John McCain served his time as a POW with great courage, loyalty and tenacity. More than 600 of us did the same. After our repatriation a census showed that 95% of us had been tortured at least once. The Vietnamese were quite democratic about it. There were many heroes in North Vietnam. I saw heroism every day there. And we motivated each other to endure and succeed far beyond what any of us thought we had in ourselves. Succeeding as a POW is a group sport, not an individual one. We all supported and encouraged each other to survive and succeed. John knows that. He was not an individual POW hero. He was a POW who surmounted the odds with the help of many comrades, as all of us did.

I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

It is also disappointing to see him take on and support Bush's war in Iraq, even stating we might be there for another 100 years. For me John represents the entrenched and bankrupt policies of Washington-as-usual. The past 7 years have proven to be disastrous for our country. And I believe John's views on war, foreign policy, economics, environment, health care, education, national infrastructure and other important areas are much the same as those of the Bush administration.

I'm disappointed to see John represent himself politically in ways that are not accurate. He is not a moderate Republican. On some issues he is a maverick. But his voting record is far to the right. I fear for his nominations to our Supreme Court, and the consequent continuing loss of individual freedoms, especially regarding moral and religious issues. John is not a religious person, but he has taken every opportunity to ally himself with some really obnoxious and crazy fundamentalist ministers lately. I was also disappointed to see him cozy up to Bush because I know he hates that man. He disingenuously and famously put his arm around the guy, even after Bush had intensely disrespected him with lies and slander. So on these and many other instances, I don't see that John is the "straight talk express" he markets himself to be.

Senator John Sidney McCain, III is a remarkable man who has made enormous personal achievements. And he is a man that I am proud to call a fellow POW who "Returned With Honor." That's our POW motto. But since many of you keep asking what I think of him, I've decided to write it out. In short, I think John Sidney McCain, III is a good man, but not someone I will vote for in the upcoming election to be our President of the United States.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Doctor Phillip Butler is a 1961 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former light-attack carrier pilot. In 1965 he was shot down over North Vietnam where he spent eight years as a prisoner of war. He is a highly decorated combat veteran who was awarded two Silver Stars, two Legion of Merits, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Heart medals. After his repatriation in 1973 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at San Diego and became a Navy Organizational Effectiveness consultant. He completed his Navy career in 1981 as a professor of management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is now a peace and justice activist with Veterans for Peace.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

Sux to be you.

Doc110 Loc: York PA

Pennylynn, You have a Major Point in your comment to PeterS-muck

I am certainly no fan of the "Republican In Name Only" RINO, NeoCon," John McCain.

His military service to our nation is not in Question here, but his political and Senator record is in Question, Here . . .

Donald Trump ignited a political firestorm by questioning whether Sen. John McCain is a war hero.
John McCain -- who Jet aircraft was shot down over North Vietnam spent five years as a prisoner during the Vietnam War -- is a war hero.


Here are some of his notables quotable's, controversy's and blunders over the years . . .

His Ever the war-hawk, Neocon RINO McCain, who called the Russian hacking into the email of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager an “act of war.” “Russia has received a letter from John McCain requesting financial contribution to his presidential campaign,” the letter from Kremlin officials said. He illegally went to Syria to meet with rebels and met with neo-Nazi leaders in Kiev, Ukraine.

McCain stumbled badly six years ago in his presidential contest against Barak Obama, the one-time political maverick NeoCon has been trying to rebrand himself as the GOP’s unparalleled spokesman on foreign policy and defense. Hence, he's now called a War-Hawk . . .

McCain’s Campaign Rocked by Meth Lab, and McCain announced that his running mate would be Sarah Palin, an unknown governor from Alaska. Personally I like the Gop Sarah Palin Attack Dog's political style against liberal democrats with her use of sarcasm, logic and facts.

McCain is a political sellout for money, just like the Clintons and just like any political hack crony's . . . the controversy list goes on and on . . .


1. Remember the S&L Bailout? John McCain Hopes You Don’t . . .
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/09/remember-sl-bailout-john-mccain-hopes-you-dont/

2. Senator John McCain Demands “Act of War” Against Russia
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/12/30/senate . . .

3. John McCain desperately wants to help his ISIS friends, calls for Arm's shipments
www.theduran.com/john-mccain-desperately-wants-help- . . .

4. Trump blasts war hawks John McCain and Lindsey Graham for trying to start WW3
www.hangthebankers.com/trump-war-hawks-john-mccain-li
Russian collusion confirmed: Bill and Hillary Clinton personally made $2.85m selling US uranium to Russia.
The joint statement of former presidential candidates John McCain & Lindsey Graham is wrong – they are sadly weak on immigration.


Doc110

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

Did anyone read McCain's memoir Faith of My Fathers? How about John Dramesi's Code of Honor? If you have not, then I highly recommend both books. Both address McCain's military career and the time he spent as a guest at the Hỏa Lò Prison.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

I am only aware of excerpts from the book...but, the following explains from where much of the misinformation/disinformation about Mr. McCain stems. Faith Of My Fathers is brought up during the article.

Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain claims McCain was a "Hanoi Hilton songbird" who collaborated with the enemy.

No evidence McCain was a traitor

By Shawn Zeller on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 12:00 a.m.

In an echo of the attacks from the 2000 South Carolina primary that dealt a critical blow to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, a new flyer says the Arizona senator is a traitor.

It says that when he was a POW, McCain was a "Hanoi Hilton songbird" who collaborated with the enemy.

But it provides scant evidence to back up this claim and it is strongly contradicted by many other accounts reviewed by PolitiFact: interviews with other POWs, an author who has written a McCain biography and the senator's own accounts.

Robert Timberg, author of John McCain: An American Odyssey , who has interviewed many POWs who served with McCain, said there's no evidence that he ever collaborated with the North Vietnamese. "I've never known of any occasion in which Sen. McCain provided the North Vietnamese with anything of value," Timberg said.

The flyer was sent to about 80 media organizations in South Carolina and is posted on the group's Web site. The flyer probably would have been ignored, but the McCain campaign issued a statement calling it "a vicious attack."

The flyer has a caricature of a surly-looking McCain in a prison cell under the words, "Hanoi Hilton Songbird." The second page is headlined "FACT SHEET: Military Record of John Sidney McCain III" and it begins with some accurate biographical information.

The flyer contains 1 pages of criticisms of McCain, but only a few support the accusation that he was helping the enemy:

• That he told his captors "Okay, I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital."

• That the Hanoi news media reported he had given information about his flight, rescue ships and the order of U.S. attacks.

• That he broke the military code because he answered questions from a Spanish psychiatrist who had apparently been cooperating with the North Vietnamese.

There is some truth to these claims, but collectively they do not prove McCain was involved in "collaborations with the enemy," as the flyer alleges.

In his memoir Faith of My Fathers, McCain says that he initially offered the information because he was badly injured and afraid of dying. But, he wrote, "I didn't intend to keep my word."

When he was later interrogated, McCain gave his ship's name and squadron number and confirmed the target of his failed mission, he wrote. He also gave the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line and said they were members of his squadron.

Asked to identify future targets, he mentioned North Vietnamese cities that U.S. planes had already bombed.

George "Bud" Day and Orson Swindle, fellow POWs, told PolitiFact that POWs sometimes were forced to talk when they were tortured, but they tried to tell lies to mislead their captors.

"We were all tortured and we wrote confessions under the pressure of torture," said Swindle, who was a cellmate with McCain and is active in his campaign. "John McCain never collaborated with the enemy. He, like every one of us, submitted to severe torture. John McCain did nothing dishonorable. He was heroic."

At one point, McCain broke down and signed a confession. But Timberg, the biographer, said McCain deliberately used misspellings, grammatical errors and Communist jargon to show he was writing under duress: "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died, and the Vietnamese people saved my life . . . "

Day, a Medal of Honor winner who also is supporting McCain's campaign, said the flyer is "the most outrageous f------ lie I've ever heard."

The man behind the flyer is Gerard "Jerry" W. Kiley, 61, of Garnerville, N.Y., who says he served in Vietnam for about a year. He describes his group as a one-man operation unaffiliated with any political party or campaign. He says he opposes McCain because of the senator's efforts to normalize relations with the Vietnamese communist government and because, in his view, McCain has helped the U.S. government keep information about POWs classified.

"John McCain has made sure the information concerning the lives of Americans we clearly abandoned after the war remain in government files 40 years later," he says.

He teamed with political activist Ted Sampley of North Carolina to distribute the fliers to South Carolina media outlets this month. Sampley did not respond to requests for comment.

Sampley also is a longtime McCain opponent. In 2000, he gained attention when he called McCain a "Manchurian candidate" on his Web site and said that he was an agent of the Vietnamese. In 1993, Sampley was convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to 180 days' probation for attacking a McCain aide, according to a 2004 article in the New York Times.

McCain is not the first politician to draw the men's ire. In 2004, they formed Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry.

Kiley has twice interrupted events featuring Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, forcing an American flag in his hand on one occasion and throwing red wine at him on another, according to a Secret Service agent who later arrested Kiley. He admits he threw the wine, but he was later acquitted in federal court of threatening Khai.

Kiley says he bases his most damning charges against McCain — that McCain gave information about the schedule of U.S. attacks in Vietnam in 1967, the year his plane was shot down and McCain was captured — on the word of Earl Hopper, a retired Army colonel.

In an interview, Hopper's wife, Patty, said that Hopper wasn't able to address the charges over the phone because of poor hearing. She said that Hopper has long been involved in the POW movement and that Earl Hopper's son, Earl Jr., is missing in action in Vietnam.

She cited as evidence for Hopper's charges a 1973 article by McCain that ran in U.S. News and World Report and what she said were "declassified U.S. military documents" she claimed to possess describing McCain's collaboration. Patty Hopper said she was away from her Arizona home and could not fax those documents.

But the 1973 article does not back up the charges made in the flyer. It provides the same basic account as McCain's book, corroborated by Timberg's book, which was based on interviews with many POWs.

Timberg, Day and Swindle noted that McCain, the son of a Navy admiral, was offered an early release from the prison but refused so that he could adhere to the military's code of conduct.

Timberg said he was perplexed by the allegations.

"Why do they hate him? There can be lots of issues you disagree with him about. But why try to destroy him?"

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Code Of Honor, by John Dramesi

I am not familiar with 'Code Of Honor,' by John Dramesi, but pulled this by Kirkus Indie Review:

"Colonel Dramesi (then a captain) was shot down on a mission over North Vietnam on April 2, 1967, and subsequently endured six years as a POW. Until he was released in 1973, he followed the Code of Conduct for POWs: no aid to the enemy--period. Dramesi was an absolute martinet, lived through months upon months of very great torture, actively planned dangerous escapes (twice he carried them out--the third was ready to go but he was talked out of it for the good of his fellow POWs), and maintained unwavering loyalty to Presidents Johnson and Nixon and the American war effort. Where other prisoners broke down and signed papers or made tapes repudiating America's role, he found that his great spiritual ability to endure arose from his inflexible beliefs. It did not matter whether he was right or wrong--it was his steel-on-stone strength which preserved him. Dramesi feels that his escape activities were dictated by his being a military man, demanded by the code, and that, moreover, they gave his existence as a POW a life-sustaining coherence. He writes well about his torments and tormentors, his fellow POWs, their general confusion and frequent dislike of his fanatic self-discipline. He remains silent about his present thoughts on the war--apparently because he's still an officer--which is too bad. His pain-by-pain description of tortures--of being shackled and watching mosquitoes drink to the full and fall bloated from his infected foot--is memorable as atrocity literature, but terribly limited and circumscribed in every other way. One wishes he could afford a less rigid perspective."

I suspect that "rigid perspective" led to Dramesi's survival without compromise. I will seek to obtain both books locally.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

If you have not read the books then I highly recommend both books and while you wait at the library to find the books let this quote play in your mind.... it is McCain's own words: "there is never enough time and distance between the past and the present to allow one to forget his shame." Also, let this play in your mind, he admitted to "confessing" and making the recordings that played repeatedly in the camp so other prisoners could hear his confession over and over again. Also remember the men on the USS Forrestal. McCain's "accident" set off a chain reaction of bombs, creating a devastating inferno that would kill 134 of the carrier's 5,000-man crew, injured 161 and threaten to sink the ship. And McCain's remorse is clearly expressed in his own words: "This distressed me considerably, I feared my ambitions were among the casualties in the calamity that had claimed the Forrestal." As real men of valor put out fires, moved bombs, and prepared to limp to the Philippines for repairs, McCain took a helicopter ride with R.W. "Johnny" Apple of The New York Times for "some welcome R&R" to Saigon. I believe that the recordings are his, there is a remark he made "Now that I've seen what the bombs and napalm did to the people on our ship, I'm not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam." This quote is from an article that Johnny Apple wrote 3 months after McCain was shot down over Hanoi. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/politics/20080203_MCCAIN_TIMELINE/content/pdf/19670731b.pdf
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/politics/20080203_MCCAIN_TIMELINE/content/pdf/19671028.pdf
You may also be interested in the documents maintained at: https://www.powhrdlicka.com/documents/ in particular this scanned document: https://www.powhrdlicka.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/McCainSSCdocshred.pdf

.

I know that you hold him as a hero and I am not sure if the reason is respect for crashing several Air Force airplanes, his actions aboard the USS Forrestal, his blocking the recovery of POW/MIAs, or it just may be your shared hate of President Trump. Whatever your reasons may be, you owe it to yourself to investigate him with an open mind.