O.K. O.K. after 3 days, the narrative is drilled into my skull.
John McCain, the self-centered "bottom-gun" of the US Navy liked to be reckless, and broke a lot of rules, which was O.K. because he was young and hadn't had his character built yet.
Last Night, McCain himself told the story of his time as a POW in dramatic detail for the first time (this week) in public. What a heart-wrenching moment. What pathos. How can we not vote for a man whose character has been forged by such a life altering experience.
So, let's see how his character shows through the rest of his biography (Details taken from Wikipedia).
Johnny-Boy comes back from the war. No selfish lout anymore, he steadfastly stands by his wife, tragically disabled in a car accident.
Well, no.
He parties hard, chases women, and commits his self-described biggest moral failing by letting his marriage fall apart. He finally hooked up with Cindy Hensley, who just happens to be phenomenally rich and a beauty queen.
His first wife, who says John caused the divorce "because he was 40, but wanted to pretend he was 25" has forgiven him. God has forgiven him. We can too. Let's move along.
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The strength of character forged by his POW experience showed up in the next phase of his life, when John set aside his ambitions to learn about the needs of his new Phoenix community before running for Congress.
O.K. That one doesn't work either.
He was planning to run for congress before he left the Navy and moved to Phoenix, proudly standing on his own two feet (no, again) by letting his step-father give him a job as Vice-President of public relations, where he was able to meet such well-connected future allies as Charles Keating. (That's called foreshadowing. More on Keating later, of course)
Hey, his constituents elected him, fair and square, by dint of his hard campaigning (and lots of cash from his wife's family fortune). No character issues here. Let's keep going.
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So now that he was in Congress, the nobility created in our hero by his harrowing POW experience (13 years ago) shone through as he bucked public opinion by declaring that a great American hero such as Martin Luther King, Jr. simply needed a national holiday.
OOPS again!
He opposed the bill that Ronald Reagan signed into law. McCain finally admitted that this was a mistake only during his current run for the presidency.
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Finally, 18 years after his torture ended, the dormant strength of character revealed himself when he bravely stood up to one of his largest campaign contributors and refused to meet with regulators to discuss the investigation into his failed S&L.
What's that you say, he did meet with regulators on behalf of Charles Keating?
He was never charged with anything criminal. It did turn out that he had failed to report trips on Keating's plane as campaign contributions, and the Senate cleared him of violations of Senate rules in meeting with the regulators, but they did "mildly rebuke him for exercising poor judgement." We're still looking for that character to emerge.
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Now we come to the 90's, when the McCain as "Maverick Republican" image takes hold. The 90's are actually scandal free and have some nice honors and achievements for the Senator. Can we now say that he has absorbed the lessons of the 60's war into his character?
I don't think so.
We had a Democratic president, who was pretty popular for most of the decade, and McCain wanted to get things done with his name on them. Really, if he's such a humble guy, why does he seem to attach his name to legislation a lot? It is also worthy of note that he finished out the decade by having a book, "Faith of my Fathers," written and published just in time for his presidential bid.
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Ah, the 21st century. 30 years and counting since his repatriation from Vietnam. At last, McCain will be true to the noble calling he found in
captivity. After losing the election to Bush, based in part on some truly vile tactics by the Bush-Rove-Cheney smear machine, he goes on to a record of solid bipartisan accomplishments in the Senate. One can see in this a man who is really putting country above party and getting things done.
One could see that, but I don't.
I see a man sticking it to the Bushies to extract some vengence for what they did to him.
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We know the rest of the story. In 2004, he decided to reconcile with Bush and start shoring up his credentials with the conservative base of the Republican party. Over the years, he tacked hard right on Pat Robertson, "pro-life", the bush tax cuts, strict constructionist justices, immigration reform, domestic spying, and even torture. He says he's running as a bipartisan, maverick reformer, but he has nothing but noble words about bipartisanship and Joe the toady-traitor to show that he is willing to compromise on any issues.
Throughout the Republican convention, we were bludgeoned with countless recountings of McCain's POW story. Each time we were told that suffering builds character. We just weren't told that you have to wait 40 years for it to show up. At that rate sitting through McCain's speech last night should give me a little bit of character come 2048.