NYT: That McCain cross story

Who Knew What When? - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com: "The blogosphere is also lighting up with questions about the story Mr. McCain told at the forum — and many times previously — about a moment when a guard in his prison camp in Hanoi etched a cross in the dirt in front of him on a Christmas day. Mr. McCain related the story movingly at the forum, almost choking up, and added a line that he had not used before publicly: “For a minute there, there was just two Christians, worshiping together.

But some in the blogosphere are noting that this scene is strikingly similar to one painted by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writing about his days in the gulag, and are questioning whether it actually happened to Mr. McCain. Mark Nicholas, a Democrat from Montana, has this. And over at the liberal DailyKos, they are noting that conservatives at Free Republic first raised doubts about the story in 2005."

UPDATE: Naw, it's not Solzhenitsyn's story, though it has been attributed to him in years past by a variety of right wingers including Jesse Helms.