McCain's Own 60's Radical Pal
The McCain campaign shows no shame in engaging in a tired guilt-by-association tactic as Sarah Palin accuses Obama of "palling around with terrorists." This desperate calumny derives from Obama once serving on the same non-profit board as former 60's radical Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the Weather Underground.
But what about McCain's own associations with former 60's radicals. Indeed, until just a few years ago, McCain openly boasted not only about his passing friendship but also his deep collaboration with one of the most prominent of Vietnam-era student radicals, David Ifshin. The same David Ifshin who denounced America on Radio Hanoi as McCain sat locked up as a POW.
I met Ifshin about the same time he came into McCain's life. But under very different circumstances. In 1970, as president of the left-leaning National Student Association, Ifshin traveled to North Vietnam with other anti-war radicals and it was then that he went on Radio Hanoi to denounce his own country's war effort. That broadcast was piped directly into POW McCain's cell in the Hanoi Hilton and he was understandably enraged by what he thought was a traitorous act by a fellow American.
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In the meantime, and much to his credit, Senator John McCain forged a close personal friendship with Ifshin, as well as a working political alliance. Together they worked to establish the Institute for Democracy in Vietnam and partnered up on the issue of normalization of relations with Vietnam.
As recently as two years ago, speaking at Columbia College, McCain affectionately and warmly recalled his relationship with Ifshin saying:
more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-cooper/mccains-own-60s-radical-p_b_132032.html