They planted stories that the torture McCain suffered as a POW had brought about mental instability.

[The Straight Story]

Turning McCain's record into a liability - how they did it.

If you're really, really cynical, why not turn a record of honorable record of military service and dedication to America into a liability!

From Patriot Project's The Swiftboaters Are Back in the Water,

... Bush surrogates (several later involved in the Kerry swiftboating effort) skillfully turned McCain's service record against him (thereby deflecting questions about Bush's own service record.) They planted stories that the torture McCain suffered as a POW had brought about mental instability, including rumors that he had been programmed as a "Manchurian candidate" who "collaborated with the enemy." No longer could McCain use the fact that he had endured torture as evidence of dedication to serving his country.

And as explained in Patriot Project's Did Paul Galanti Sell His Medals,

In the 2000 South Carolina Presidential primary Bush surrogates circulated stories that McCain's five years as a POW had made him "mentally unstable," gave him a "loose screw," that he "committed treason while a POW" and "came home and forgot us." The stories also called McCain "the fag candidate," called his wife a drug addict, said McCain "chose to sire children without marriage" and had "a black child" (the actual wording of that last smear from the flyers and e-mails that circulated is not printable here).

And when McCain responded by asking whether this kind of smear campaign showed that voters should think twice about trusting Bush, saying Bush was "twisting the truth like Clinton," Rove was able to turn that against McCain¸ by accusing McCain of "going negative." Unlike Rove and Bush, McCain hadn't understood the value of attacking with surrogates.

This information was passed using flyers, e-mails, word-of-mouth and "push polls." As McCain's campaign manager, Richard H. Davis, later wrote in his article about what happened, The anatomy of a smear campaign that,

Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.

But other Bush surrogates threw smoke into the air, accusing the media of making up the whole story

Thursday night ABC, CBS and NBC all featured full stories about John McCain's indignation over "push polling" by the Bush campaign -- based solely on the second-hand recitation by a mother about a phone call her 14-year-old son supposedly received tagging McCain a "fraud" and a "liar."

While all the stories included denials from the Bush campaign that they made any such calls, by making the allegation the basis of their campaign story of the night, only ABC ran a second story on another subject (see item #2 below), the networks served the agenda of the McCain campaign.

etc...

Synhorst's firm specialized in push-polling. According to a Feb. 11, 2000 Washington Post story...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/john-mccain-2000-the-swi_b_30654.html

[NNN0LHI]

1. And then McCain climbed onto stages to hug and kiss Bush

What a guy, eh?

Don

[The Straight Story]

2. Indeed, McCain would sell out his own mom if he could for politics (nt)