Back in March when Hillary Clinton claimed she braved sniper fire in Tuzla in 1996, she wasn't pandering to voters in the swing state of Bosnia. But in swapping the Pittsburgh Steelers for the Green Bay Packers in his famous tale of duping his Vietnamese captors, John McCain Friday made a cynical play to win over the people of Pennsylvania.
To be sure, John McCain wasn't padding his resume with a dubious example of his courage and sacrifice. His personal bravery is beyond dispute. But McCain's life story is so well documented and so central to his campaign that his made-to-order biographical facelift for a Pittsburgh audience should raise questions about his judgment and character.
As ABC's Jake Tapper details, the tale of POW McCain tricking his interrogators in Hanoi was prominently featured in his 1999 memoir Faith of My Fathers and the 2005 A&E film based on it. In his book, McCain wrote:

"Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron."

During a subsequent May 2005 interview with CNN, McCain confirmed that movie's account of his response to his Vietnamese handlers ("Starr; Greg; McGee; Davis; Adderly; Brown; Ringo; Wood") was accurate:

"That was the starting lineup of the Green Bay Packers, the first Super Bowl champions, yes," McCain responded. But it's -- it was the best I could think of at the time."

Fast forward to 2008 and Pennsylvania with its 21 electoral votes is in play. (Wisconsin, home to the Packers, only offers 10.) Perhaps hoping to close the gap with his Democratic rival Barack Obama, McCain Friday told Jon Delano of Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV that it was his city's football Steelers at the heart of the Hanoi Hilton ruse (video here). Asked "when you think of Pittsburgh, what's the first thing that comes to your mind," McCain answered, "the Steelers." He continued:

"When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup -- defensive line -- of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!"

Now, it is entirely possible, as the McCain campaign insists, that McCain's was "an honest mistake." Unfortunately, McCain's SteelerGate occurred in the same week Mr. Straight Talk claimed "I'm committed to making sure that there's equal pay for equal work ", an assertion obviously belied by his past statements and voting record. Days earlier, McCain falsely asserted he has the backing of all veterans groups, which he does not. On Thursday, the supposed maverick could not recall his past opposition to mandating that insurance companies covering Viagra also pay for birth control, a position his surrogate Carly Fiorina conveniently - and strategically - got wrong at an event targeting women voters. And to be sure, McCain's Pittburrgh Pander called to mind his June 4th Hurricane Katrina whopper at a Baton Rouge town hall meeting that "I've supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy."
That's a lot of "honest mistakes" to make in one week. Either John McCain is a craven political opportunist of the first order or his memory is failing at a dizzying rate certain to rekindle talk of the age issue. Neither explanation should bode well for the campaign of Mr. Straight Talk.
As for Hillary Clinton, in late March she admitted she "misspoke" about her 1996 visit to the Tuzla airport in Bosnia. But the damage was done. The episode only served to confirm the pre-existing media narrative of the cold, calculating Clinton willing to say or do anything to get elected.
But for John McCain, the myth of the straight-talking maverick persists despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. As Media Matters noted in April, The Washington Post's Richard Cohen perfectly encapsulated the double-standard almost certain to come:

"He's an honorable man who has fudged and ducked and swallowed the truth on occasion -- about the acceptability of the Confederate flag, for instance -- but always, I think, for understandable although not necessarily admirable reasons." By contrast, Cohen described Sen. Hillary Clinton's remarks about being under sniper fire in Bosnia as a "polygraph buster" and said of Clinton: "She wants to become president so badly that she has made the goal more important than how she gets there."

UPDATE: A McCain spokesman responds to their man's selective amnesia, "If bloggers want to make fun of John McCain because he forgot which team he used under torture, that is their right."