From the vault: In ’99, McCain claimed being a POW for five years improved his mental health

While we await the release of John McCain’s medical file–which his campaign has pledged to disgorge by next month–I took a look through press accounts of McCain’s last release of medical information, during his 2000 run for the White House. 

One eye-opener: McCain’s startling claim that he believes the five years he spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam were actually a boon to his mental health and temperamental stability.

Continued: Click “Read more”Quoting USA Today:

“[McCain] reports improvements in his temperament as a result of 5+ years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. ‘He learned more about himself, about others, felt that he and his values had been tested, and was reassured that he had met the challenge successfully, and that he had finally climbed out from under the image of his father,’ a Navy admiral, reads one exam summary. ‘He learned to control his temper better, to not become angry over insignificant things: not to go to the mat over some minor provocation by a guard that resulted in needless torture. (Possibly his identity and masculinity were no longer at issue.)’”

Given McCain’s enduring and well-known fondness for calling his Senate colleagues names and telling them to fuck themselves, what are we to make of this? Does it mean that, prior to his internment, McCain might have killed Chuck Grassley and Pete Domenici with his bare hands?