Double Cross in the Dirt? [UPDATED]

Now it's getting down and dirty . . . McCain accused of cribbing his famous "Cross in the Dirt" POW story from Solzhenitsyn.  (That would give him something to debate Biden about, if . . . but they won't be debating in any case.)

UPDATE:  It looks as if this story is just going to dry up and blow away for lack of reliable evidence either way.

A fellow POW, Orson Swindle -- avowedly a McCain partisan actively campaigning for him -- "vaguely recall[s]" hearing the story, among many others, from McCain while they were still imprisoned, but no longer isolated, in 1971.  (One of the complaints of McCain's accusers had been that he had never publicly told the story until 1999, even in contexts where he told other, similarly religious stories to similarly receptive audiences and the cross story would have been more than appropriate.)

I'm too freakin' tired to retrace my steps and do a good job of linking now (I found out today that the one home health aide Jacques really liked is now on crack), but someone -- Sullivan?  yes, Sully has the best account of the whole controversy -- had a Russian friend search The Gulag Archipelo; the friend reported that there is no such story in the two volumes of the book.  There is a story about seeing a cross around a roughneck prisoner's neck and thinking, with relief, but entirely wrongly, that that might mean the man was somewhat civilized.  There is no resemblance between these stories, except that they both involved a cross.  Then it was proposed that the Solzhenistyn cross-in-the-dirt story might have been invented out of whole cloth by Chuck Colson (?!).  (In the story, it is a skinny old prisoner, not a guard, who scratched a cross in the dirt.)  I actually searched One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich online, because it sounded more like a story from that book; but the word "cross" hardly turns up, and then mostly in regard to crossing a road.

It is evident that McCain has changed the story over time -- was the cross marked out with a sandal or a stick? -- and that he trots it out for effect in front of Christian audiences, which is a little off-putting, but hey . . . he's a politician.  Nothing is sacred, even the sacred.  Everything is grist for the mill.

Comments

[Peter Hoh]

Sullivan raises questions as to whether this was a real Solzhenitsyn story or one attributed to Solzhenitsyn by Chuck Colson.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/mccain-salter-a.html

[Peter Hoh]

Have you heard about the Mother Theresa embellishment?

[amba]

Oh no, now what? They adopted their daughter from Mother Theresa, but that's straight; what else?

[Peter Hoh]

The story did not always include the bit about Mother Theresa personally asking Cindy McCain to take two girls to the US for medical treatment, but over time, that got added to the story. It isn't true. Cindy McCain did not meet with Mother Theresa on that trip.

After being contacted by the Christian Science Monitor, the McCain campaign revised the story of the McCain's adoption.

Full article here.

So it appears that the McCains took a compelling story, but somehow felt the need to juice it up. This adds to my suspicion about the cross in the dirt story.

There is a thread of embellishing stories -- and just plain making them up -- in evangelical circles. Of course, Evangelical Christians are by no means unique in this.

I'm sure this statement will raise some hackles. Let me offer support for this claim. That will make this a rather lengthy comment. Sorry about that. Please remember, I'm not suggesting that Evangelical Christians are more likely than any other group to repeat and/or believe such stories.

See this Snopes entry as evidence of what I'm talking about. Read the final paragraph. It begins, "Claims made about the candy's religious symbolism have become increasingly widespread . . . ."

I remember a story about a devout Christian who started a website to debunk some of the stories that are forwarded in emails.

I'm not sure I found the one I read about, but I found this one. The writer makes this claim:

"Sadly, Christians seem to be especially gullible when it comes to urban legends. We believe an email because it is sent to us by a friend or because we want to believe it since it confirms our world view or because we are just too lazy to check it out. Unfortunately when we pass around falsehoods, we violate the command against bearing false witness and we make it harder for people to believe that our most important message (about Jesus) is true."

I followed a link to a related page, on which I found this quote:

Christian bookstores are full of personal stories, testimonies, and experiences on everything from possibility thinking through "I was a baby breeder for Satan." Most of these stories are characterized by subjective emotionalism, undocumented assertions, and little or no biblical or theological evaluation. But that's ok, we're told, because So-and-so really experienced it, so he knows all about it. We don't need doctrine. We don't need theology. We don't need facts. We don't need documentation. Just tell a story. It makes people feel good, and who can argue with a story?"