Originally posted by kosmicjack
reply to post by theblunttruth

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Advice? We need ideas - new ones, good ones and lots of them.

Besides:

Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. - Baz Luhrmann

We need 21st Century solutions, outside the box and forward thinking. Mccain's first reaction to the Russian/Georgian conflict was to jump ugly and start throwing around 20th Century, Cold War rhetoric like it was 1980.

McCain claims his POW sufferings included three years in solitary confinement where he was tortured so badly that he "broke," causing him to attempt suicide.

What McCain's promoters have carefully edited out of their McCain-for-president equation is his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Department of Defense psychiatrists have evaluated McCain for PTSD several times, the results of which remain locked by privacy laws.

PTSD can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which physical harm occurred or was threatened. U.S. government studies have concluded that former POWs "may remain embroiled in a harsh psychological battle with themselves for decades after returning home."

An outcome of PTSD is a subtle web of personal problems including difficulty in controlling intense emotions such as anger and an inability to function well under stress.

Psychologist Patricia B. Sutker of the New Orleans Veterans Administration Medical Center and her colleagues reported in a 1991 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry that as many as nine of 10 surviving U.S. servicemen taken captive during the Korean War may suffer from PTSD and other mental disorders more than 35 years after their release.

In a follow-up study, VA experts concluded that POWs suffer "a much greater risk of developing PTSD than combat veterans."

McCain last revealed his medical records in 1999, making 1,500 pages of records available to reporters when he was competing with George W. Bush for the Republican nomination. The records spanned his time in the Navy to his failed bid for the White House.

The newer batch of records has strict security guidelines attached. Only certain news networks and newspapers will be permitted to enter the room, and they will have only three hours to examine the papers.

No cell phones or Internet access will be allowed in the room, located in a resort outside Phoenix, Arizona. Copying the records is also prohibited.

Anyone who leaves the room for any reason except the bathroom will not be allowed back.

McCain's campaign says the rules allow for a "thorough and substantive review" of McCain's medical history.

The reporters who looked at the records did not describe any mention of a PTSD diagnosis. However, they failed to note that it would have been impossible for McCain to receive such a diagnosis -- since the term "post-traumatic stress disorder" was not in use until seven years after McCain's release from captivity.

There are behaviors associated with the candidate that would be consistent with a diagnosis of PTSD. Author Robert Timberg mentions McCain's intense explosions of anger --- a hallmark sign of lingering mental trauma from war -- in his book "John McCain: An American Odyssey." Timberg describes the episodes as "an eruption of temper out of all proportion to the provocation." Timberg, who McCain has said "knows more about me than I do," wrote that McCain's sudden fury is a result of Vietnam coming "back to haunt him." McCain has himself described having an adverse reaction to the sound of jangling keys, which reminds him of his Vietnam jailers. McCain also told doctors that during solitary confinement he had strayed pretty "far out" and had referred to himself as "mentally deteriorating."