He's a maverick, not a Ford
Judging by the reaction to my Nov. 26 piece about John McCain's philosophy, there's a hunger out there for critical examinations of America's favorite maverick politician. If you share such tastes, I can't recommend highly enough this long Vanity Fair profile by Todd Purdum. Here's an interesting anecdote about immigration:
McCain [was] asked how debate over the immigration bill was playing politically. "In the short term, it probably galvanizes our base," he said. "In the long term, if you alienate the Hispanics, you'll pay a heavy price." Then he added, unable to help himself, "By the way, I think the fence is least effective. But I'll build the goddamned fence if they want it."
On his primary-season veer to the right:
"Yes, he's a social conservative, but his heart isn't in this stuff," one former aide told me, referring to McCain's instinctual unwillingness to impose on others his personal views about issues such as religion, sexuality, and abortion. "But he has to pretend [that it is], and he's not a good enough actor to pull it off. He just can't fake it well enough."
The most jaw-dropping bit, though, comes from President George W. Bush:
One of McCain's aides tells me that two years ago, campaigning with McCain, George W. Bush asked him if the senator would like to work out with him. Told that McCain did not, could not, really "work out," Bush replied, "What do you mean?"
It's always hard to work out when all of your major joints have been permanently mangled via torture....
A longer and more timely bit about troop escalation (or "Serge," as I like to call the White House's new pet creation), after the jump.
McCain's approach on troop escalation seems to be two-pronged -- don't let our boys be humiliated, then pray like hell. A particularly torturous passage:
What do we do now? His own short-term prescription -- more troops to stabilize the country, if that is even possible -- has little public support. "The Iraq situation looks like we're in a quagmire," one man [at a campaign stop] in Milwaukee says. Another adds, "It seems to be tipping." A third asks, "What should the president be doing differently?"
McCain is subdued. Like the rest of official Washington, he has been waiting for the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan commission on Iraq led by former secretary of state James Baker and former representative Lee Hamilton. He hopes the commission will point the way to some promising new direction, and he knows that, whatever the wise men say, he must refine his own approach to the war. But his remarks this morning are uninspired, even vapid. "The next few months will be critical," he tells the businessmen, his critical faculties not as acute as they had been with me just a month earlier, in private, when he said, "A lot of people tell me that the next four months or so are critical ... but I'd like to say that, two years ago, everyone said the next six months would be critical."
Finally, a questioner lays it all on the line: "The war's the big issue," he says, adding, "Some kind of disengagement -- it's going to have to happen. It's a big issue for you, for our party, in 24 months. It's not that long a time." McCain replies, "I do believe this issue isn't going to be around in 2008. I think it's going to either tip into civil war...." He breaks off, as if not wanting to rehearse the handful of other unattractive possibilities. "Listen," he says, "I believe in prayer. I pray every night." And that's where he leaves his discussion of the war this morning: at the kneeling rail.
On the way to our next stop, McCain tells me, "It's just so hard for me to contemplate failure that I can't make the next step."
A week after the November elections, I went to have another conversation with McCain, in his Senate office. I pressed him on the war. He maintained that deploying more American troops was "the only viable option," but added, "There are no good options from where we are today." He went on: "My difference with these people who are saying, 'Threaten the Iraqis with leaving and then they'll do more' -- that assumes that they can or will do more. And there's no way that you're going to have any kind of stability without security. Political progress cannot take place unless you have the fundamental elements of a security situation. So, do I know it would be a tremendous strain on the army and Marine Corps? Absolutely. But I saw the kind of impact of a broken army, a defeated army and Marine Corps, after Vietnam. And I'd much rather have 'em take a strain and have some success than be defeated."
McCain has become to much like John Kerry, and he definately hobnobs too much with Ted Kennedy. Neither act destined to convince folks that he has become a rip-snorting conservative republican.
On Iraq, McCain is just dead wrong. More troops are not going to help our or the Iraqi governments situation in the slightest. What will happen is more American dead and injured and a boatload more taxpayer money wasted on a project that has been so badly mis-handled as to be nearly beyond belief.
While the border fence is surely aimed directly at Mexican nationals who violate our immigration laws, it is supposed to be a symbol to others whom would become illegal aliens. A better preventive would be arresting, sentencing, and locking up employers of illegal's. Large fines against corporations that allow employment of illegal's would also do much more than a fence. But McCain won't support this because he is in bed with the corporate lobbyists, and because he has a soft spot for the "poor" citizens of Mexico.
I don't know what army McCain is talking about that was broken or defeated. It wasn't ours. What caused our withdrawal from Vietnam was politicians and American citizens that didn't want to do all that was necessary to eliminate the North Vietnamese as a combat force. Our media heaped fuel on this fire every night and mangled the truth and played up the body count till no one wanted to hear about anything concerning Vietnam anymore. Now, they are doing the same, and with our mis-understanding and mis-handling of the situation in Iraq, it's happening all over again.
As a presidential candidate, McCain just doesn't cut it.
Posted by: Joe | January 06, 2007 at 04:30 PM
Trai dep & DPK -- I think the media's Era of Good Feelings toward McCain is coming to a close; there have been rumblings for the past 12 monts or so (Jon Stewart, Paul Krugman, this Vanity Fair piece, etc.), as can be expected when a once-convincing straight talker does a do-over on many of his views, particularly on items most journalists disagree with.
The Serge will be another interesting moment; if (as I suspect) it goes over like a lead balloon, McCain will likely take at least somewhat of a public & media hit, though he might triangulate by saying Bush didn't go as far as he needed to. (This has been his M.O.; something like "either go all the way, or don't go at all," so in theory he'd be able to support a future withdrawl.)
Posted by: Matt Welch | January 06, 2007 at 12:58 PM
I'm flabbergasted at the free pass that McCain gets from the media. Back during the Jurassic era, he was a common-sense conservative (small "c") that saw the extreme right as something that America is much better to deserve. And said so. If THAT McCain was present, he'd be a viable candidate for the nation.
However, he's fled from this centrist approach, he's enabled the crippling policies of Bush and he's - what's the term - flip-flopped on nearly every social and moral issue that separated him from the loons that he once stood out from. He's the same as all the rest of them.
Even if he doesn't "believe" (whatever that means), he's shown himself to be someone that doesn't embrace principled stands.
Okay, fine. There's no Santa.
But why the "maverick", "straight-talking" adultory coverage of him? Journalists (or more likely, editors) are sometimes prisoners of their own preconceptions and it seems like McCain is getting a free ride...
Posted by: trai dep | January 06, 2007 at 11:50 AM
McCain's heart is very much into his brand of conservatism. He is no more a Maverick than Mr. Bush is in favor of small or open government. He is simply not in lock-step with Cheney-Bush-Rove about how to please the Base. His vaunted compromise over the Military Commissions Act or judicial nominees were nothing of the kind. Those "compromises" gave Mr. Bush everything he asked for, plus a small fig leaf for leading Senators. The quotes of McCain's views about Iraq and the objectives of a troop escalation suggest that he has no more ideas - or is unwilling to discuss them openly - than the president he hopes to succeed.
Posted by: DPK | January 06, 2007 at 09:40 AM
Senator McCain has long been misguided, particularly since bush swift-boated him in South Carolina. Now the extremists are courted by him. Why does he, and other minority opinions, get so much press? That's well beyond proportionally equal time. Such long time anti-Iraq war and anti-escalation candidates as Congressman Kuchinich and many other candidates and would be candidates have more supporters and much lower negative ratings by far. McCain has lost it, i.e., his integrity and credibility by courting the segregationists and extremists in the Southern GOP.
Posted by: Dr. Clinton J. Vickers | January 06, 2007 at 12:51 AM