A recent article from the NYT shows how the McCain sock-puppet is hand-operated:
"McCain's other adviser was 53-year-old Mark Salter, a brilliant, pugnacious writer who has composed all of McCain’s books and major speeches and in a more encompassing sense is McCain’s definer, looking after what Salter himself calls the "metanarrative" of McCain’s transformation from a reckless flyboy and P.O.W. to a courageous patriot."
This article has been mentioned before, but the implications of it are still interesting. You have to wonder, is there really anything really real about McCain other than his infamous temper, his self-righteousness, his contempt for other people who disagree with him, and his infinite sense of entitlement?
"So, Mr. Graves, you claim to have written all of Shakespeare's plays?" "Yes, that's right. I wrote all his plays, and the wife and I wrote his sonnets."
-- Monty Python
Salter "hand-crafted" McCain's image, changing the media "narrative" from the hot-head who earned the nickname "Ace" in the Navy because he crashed 5 Navy planes, to that of "POW" "courageous patriot." He wrote all McCain's books and major speeches in the process.
The complicated interdependence between McCain and Salter could be glimpsed during the candidate’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention. Salter sat in the front row, dead center, no more than 15 feet from McCain. I watched as Salter gazed intently at McCain throughout, making subtle motions with his hands and face, and when McCain came to the pivotal line in his P.O.W. tale — "I was no longer my own man; I was my country’s" — its author leapt to his feet and applauded."
The Times calls that "complicated interdependence?" It's pure sock-puppetry, rather like the way an anxious parent reacts at a music recital by their balky 12 year old. "He didn't blow it! He played every note, just the way we practiced! I'm so proud!" -- Only to the rest of the world it's still just a chubby 12 year old grinding out the theme from "Rocky" on a tuba.
In speeches, debates and advertising, the McCain campaign made liberal use of his war-hero metanarrative. On March 28, 2008, with the Republican nomination secured, McCain’s first national ad was shown. It concluded with grainy black-and-white footage of the wounded P.O.W. reciting his serial number to his captors, followed by a spoken line that Schmidt loved and adamantly defended, even when others inside the campaign argued that it made no sense: "John McCain. The American president Americans have been waiting for." Thereafter, McCain seldom wasted an opportunity to extol his own patriotism.
Here we see how Steve Schmidt transformed McCain into a noun, a verb and "P.O.W." "I was a prisoner of war," "when I was a prisoner," "You should cut me some slack when I can't remember how many houses I have, because I was a P.O.W. for 5 years."
This is all so wearily familiar from George Bush. McCain comes across in interviews with those advisers closest to him as a combination of George Bush with a boiling temper.
Eventually, it was Schmidt who blurted out the epiphany concerning Obama. "Face it, gentlemen," he said. "He’s being treated like a celebrity."
The others grasped the concept — a celebrity like J-Lo! or Britney! — and exultation overtook the room.
John and Cindy McCain showed up at the end of the daylong meeting, and Schmidt took the opportunity to run the celebrity concept by them. The McCains liked it — though the candidate was otherwise cranky: he was tired of being overscheduled and always late and demanded that this change immediately. (It did, according to a senior adviser: "After that meeting, you will rarely see McCain do an event before 9 in the morning.")
Three days later, the new ad went up. "He’s the biggest celebrity in the world," a female voice intoned, as images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton flashed on the screen.
The President can't be disturbed! The President needs his nap! Don't bother him before 9:30 AM in the morning or he'll be "cranky."
This really is just not an appealing portrait.
On how the advisers picked Sarah Palin:
Reviewing the [interview] tape, it didn’t concern Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues . . .What he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues — energy independence and ethics reform — and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her. A friend had said to Davis: "The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V. P."
So, you pick your VP candidate on how they'll appear on a magazine cover, and it "doesn't bother" you if she's totally ignorant about major issues of the day like health care! She "sticks to her pet issues" and refused to answer any questions the interviewer asked? Wonderful! What an attribute! And we saw it again in the debate when she blew off all the questions.
Well before McCain made his selection, his chief strategist and his campaign manager both concluded that Sarah Palin would be the most dynamic pick. . . .Picking Palin would upend the chessboard; it was a maverick type of move. McCain, the former Navy pilot, loved that sort of thing.