Over at the Corner, Kathleen Parker responds to John McCain skeptics who argue that his decision to refuse early release as a POW was merely in keeping with the Code of Conduct and thus not truly heroic. I would just add that at the time he was offered early release, McCain was still severely sick and injured, and there was doubt as to whether he would survive in the prison camp. Given his debilitated condition, fellow prisoners supported him accepting early release, and wouldn’t have seen it as a breach of the Code. But he refused anyway, knowingly subjecting himself to the most brutal beatings he received in all of his years at the camp.
