"We get a traitor, a no-good, rotten traitor like Bergdahl," said Donald Trump, the current frontrunner of the GOP primary pack. "And they get five killers that they most wanted in the whole world, who are right now back on the battlefield, trying to kill everybody, including us. Okay? What kind of a deal is this?"

The case of Bowe Bergdahl, the Army sergeant retrieved in a prisoner exchange with the Taliban last year and subsequently brought up on desertion charges, has never lacked for heated rhetoric, but the coincidence of his case's progress with the 2016 primary season has dramatically raised the volume. While Jack Nicholson's character in the film "A Few Good Men" may have shouted "You can't handle the truth!" the question in the Berghdahl case is whether anyone will be able to hear the truth over the noise.