Former President Jimmy Carter said Republican presidential nominee John McCain has been "milking every possible drop of advantage" from the five years he was held in captivity as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
Speaking Thursday at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Carter told USA Today reporters and editors that McCain uses his P.O.W. experience as a crutch to deflect answering important questions centering on his campaign for the White House.
Carter says he is puzzled by answers McCain gives on everything from religion to domestic affairs to foreign policy.
"John McCain … weaves in his experience in a Vietnam prison camp, no matter what the question [is]," says Carter. "It's much better than talking about how he's changed his total character between being a senator, a kind of a maverick at the time, and his acquiescence in the last few months with every kind of lobbyist pressure that the right wing Republicans have presented to him."
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