Could McCain's "I was a POW" refrain backfire on him?

As this Bloomberg story notes, John McCain is a big fan of talking about his time spent as a POW in Vietnam. He brings it up a lot. Especially when someone attacks him on an unrelated issue, like health care reform. Some would say that John McCain is using his POW status the same way Rudy Giuliani used references to 9/11, as a non-stop catch-all political ploy. The question is, could McCain's calculated use of Vietnam backfire on him?

Consider John McCain's advice to John Kerry four years ago.

McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was among the first to condemn the veterans group for challenging Kerry's combat record and spoke out against the ad throughout his 90-minute luncheon interview. But he also said Kerry had invited scrutiny of his record by putting so much emphasis on Vietnam at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last month.

"His critics are saying, 'Look, you made it fair game,' " McCain said. "I mean, that's very legitimate, and I think there's a risk that he took when he made it such a centerpiece. He may be paying a very heavy price."

McCain said that he urged Kerry sometime ago not to talk about Vietnam during his campaign. "I did advise John. I said, 'Look, you shouldn't talk about Vietnam because everybody else will. Let everybody else do it.' His advisers figured that was probably not enough, that he had to emphasize that in his campaign. In my campaign, as you know, I didn't talk about it because I didn't need to."

That's not true at all. McCain brings it up a lot. And his campaign brings it up a lot. And while McCain did things during his captivity that would make any American proud, he did other things during his captivity that generally are considered traitorous, like making propaganda videos for the enemy. If any of our troops in Iraq made propaganda videos for Al Qaeda, I have a hard time believe that John McCain and the Republicans would be calling that service member a hero. And just imagine had Barack Obama made propaganda videos for the enemy. John Kerry was Swift Boated, and he was a decorated war hero who didn't sell out his country for the enemy (hell, they attacked Kerry BECAUSE he was awarded medals!). By constantly bringing up Vietnam, McCain and his campaign remind Americans of the good John McCain they've heard about and the bad one that's gone mostly unpublicized.