Universally hailed as a hero, John McCain is often given a free pass on his personal background by virtue of his POW status...but with his presidential nomination presumably sealed, is it time to remove his veil and our kid gloves?
How many voters realize that the affable, acceptable driver of the "Straight-Talk Express" has a sketchy political record, a sordid private life and an upbringing that mirrors the despised executive that he seeks to replace?
Go below the fold for details...
I am the scion of an influential family, born of generations of powerful men. I followed their footsteps and letters of introduction into a top-level institute of higher education, where I graduated at the bottom of my class. After graduation, I was known as a partier – driving fast cars, dating fast women and admittedly "misusing my youth". In the Vietnam era I garnered a reputation as a sub-par aviator, then left the military to assume a high-paid position with the family business before being backed by well-connected friends in a run for public office. As an elected official I have been censured for heavy-handed lobbying on behalf of those who contributed to my campaigns, have a reputation for being stubborn and for holding strong convictions that are often belied by my actions and votes, and am firmly committed to an indefinite military occupation of Iraq.
Who am I?
It’s an easy question – right?
Even the mystical (mythical?) 30% of the nation that still approve our President’s performance recognize that this biography of a privileged, protean politico describes the current Commander-in-Chief...but not exclusively. Amazingly – and perhaps frighteningly – this psychological profile also mirrors the curriculum vitae of the GOP’s presumptive nominee to replace Dubya: Senator John McCain.
The names and places are slightly different, but the men's paths are eerily similar: Bush was a legacy at Yale, McCain was the same at the Naval Academy (where his admiral father and admiral grandfather preceded him). Both Bush and McCain were celebrated playboys and below-average pilots. Rather than seek real jobs, each went into the family business (for Bush it was oil, McCain married into beer distribution when he traded in his first wife for a younger model), and each used the trappings of office to favor/protect private patrons (Dubya championed oil, energy and and pharmaceuticals, McCain was indebted to fraudulent S&Ls and land-speculators). The details of their lives differ slightly, but the patterns are unmistakable.
This is not to say that the men are identical: McCain’s military service was far nobler than Bush’s, McCain’s abuse of office was mostly relegated to his early career rather than an ongoing practice, and McCain is by most accounts a hard-working official, not a lazy executive who speaks of "hard work" without partaking. Yet in many ways the men are cut from the same cloth – members of the lucky sperm club who have been given all that they have and who display average intelligence, questionable judgment and inconsistent values that are guided by intuition and temper more than reason or research.
McCain’s public persona is popularly encapsulated by photos of him as a P.O.W. – images that he liberally displays in his campaign ads as though being captured is a credential. It is considered blasphemy in some quarters to even question his character because he is a war "hero", but heroes are made by what they do, not by what happens to them. Though it did his brethren no good, John McCain was exceedingly noble when he refused to be released from captivity without his fellow prisoners -- but that brave moment in time is not the only one on which he should be judged. We must assess his whole life – even his whole captivity (what is less publicized by his campaign are the facts that he never would have survived his plane crash if he had not been singled out by the enemy to receive medical treatment because of his father’s rank, or that he might never have survived his internment had his captors failed to thwart a suicide attempt).
McCain deserves whatever credit and credibility are attributable to his military service – but he should not be allowed to hide behind the uniform or be defined by press clippings. Before Vietnam, "McNasty" was a brash, spoiled, underachieving silver-spooned boozehound and after the conflict he was a philanderer who left his family and crippled wife for a much younger, richer and politically-connected woman. In the Senate he has used his office to shield corrupt friends and earned a reputation for an uncontrollable temper. He revels in the title of "Maverick", but this seems less of a compliment on his independence than an explanation of his inconsistencies: he’s against earmarks unless he sponsors them, he opposes special interests unless they are his own, and he claims to put country before party but has conveniently changed his positions on abortion, campaign reform, tax cuts and even torture to reflect his party’s line.
This is no "Swift-Boat Attack" – it can not, and should not, be questioned that John McCain served courageously. None of these facts about his life necessarily make him a bad person. None of this means that he can’t be president. He appears to be a good and generally honorable man who means well – but he is that: a man. Not a myth, not an untouchable hero – but a man. It is unsettling to observe the mass of middle-ground voters who unreservedly admire him based solely on the atrocious things that happened to him, while hardly knowing another thing about his life or character.
And that is the point – that we should know more about our next President than the simple one-dimensional carefully-crafted self-serving images that their own campaigns supply. Once one knows the whole story, it is an individual choice whether to admire or vote for a person – but this should not be done in the dark. Unfortunately for senator McCain, shining a light on the entirety of his life shows many flaws in character...and many similarities to the man that 70% of us are desperately seeking to replace.