Obama on Ellen Degeneres: I Dance better than McCain.

Reuters Oct. 21, 2008 reports

MIAMI - One thing Barack Obama does know — he can beat his Republican rival John McCain in a dancing contest. In an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show via satellite from Miami, Obama stood before a crowd of cheering supporters and showed off his dance moves to James Brown’s big hit Get Up Offa That Thing.

But I’m convinced I’m a better dancer than John McCain, he said about his 72-year-old rival in the race for the White House.

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That's probably true. But that’s because, unlike John McCain, Barack Obama has never learned the ropes.

7-year Hanoi POW Jerry Coffee explains the ropes torture he, McCain and other U.S. prisoners survived in North Vietnam’s Hoa Lo prison:

You’re sitting on the floor with your feet locked in an iron shackle. They (the Communist interrogators) tie your arms tightly behind you above the elbows. The long rope then is thrown over the front of your shoulders and tied to your ankles. Next, the guard pushes his foot into your back to cinch the rope so tightly that finally your ears are between your feet. The cartilage in your chest rips apart, your shoulders dislocate, and the circulation is cut off. Next, the rope is thrown over a big hook on the ceiling and you’re hoisted up where you hang like a tether ball for as long as they want you there. This doesn’t help your unhealed broken arms and legs. Ironically, the pain isn’t over after you’re finally cut down. When the blood starts to flow into your extremities, it’s excruciating. You can’t hold your spoon for days after.

Bad dancer John McCain learned the ropes after his ejection from a burning jet.

After he survived North Vietnamese doctors trying unsuccessfully to set one of his two shattered arms for 90 minutes …without anesthesia. After he survived both arms having to set themselves – at odd angles – in a filthy cell – in solitary. After he survived surgery on his shattered knee, during which - come to find out - the Communist docs had cut all the ligaments and cartilage.

Bad dancer John McCain learned the ropes after he survived a shoulder socket smashed beyond repair by a rifle butt. After he said No to early release. No to signing a propaganda statement. No to co-operating.

After learning the ropes bad dancer John McCain survived rehab on knees long frozen at a 5 degree flex and survived 8 months, two hours a day of manipulation mobilization therapy – without anesthesia - till they finally bent 90 degrees.

Being a better dancer than John McCain wouldn’t be much to boast about if Barack Obama were to ever learn the ropes.

Susan Page Coffee - columnist, MidWeek Magazine, Honolulu

[sources: Robert Timberg’s An American Odyssey; and Captain Gerald Coffee, Beyond Survival; John Hubbell’s P.O.W: No American reached Hoa Lo in worse condition than McCain.]