America Doesn't Need Another Maverick

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In 1998, while speaking at a Republican fundraiser, John McCain cracked a joke:

Q: Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?

A: Because her father is Janet Reno.

Two years later, during his first presidential bid, McCain said "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." He later apologized, insisting that he was referring only to his captors, and not all Vietnamese people.

Now, I don't buy for one second that John McCain is a racist (ask his daughter Bridget if he judges people by the color of their skin). Nor do I begrudge him a mean-spirited joke at the expense of a seventeen-year-old girl. Hell, I love a good mean-spirited joke. For instance:

Q: Why did John McCain cross the road?

A: Because he's an adulterer.

But I'm troubled by the fact that McCain didn't think twice about saying these things publicly. He may be old and wise in the ways of Washington, but he's continued to demonstrate a serious lack of judgment when it comes to choosing his words.

For instance, when the press called McCain out for his 2007 "bomb Iran" Beach Boys cover, his response was "lighten up and get a life." When asked if he was worried that he was being insensitive, McCain answered "insensitive to what -- the Iranians?" and snickered, as if there was nothing wrong with insulting Iran -- a country we were (and are) trying to avoid a war with. The lesson? When given the chance to back off his comments and take a more reasoned approach, McCain chose to fire the afterburners and add insult to injury.

In many ways, he reminds me of another "Maverick" America once fell in love with. Like the Senator, this Maverick was a fighter pilot. And like the Senator, he operated on pure instinct. Said and did whatever came to mind. Played volleyball with gorgeous, glistening men. Oh sure, he was fun to watch. But in the end, he got his best friend Goose killed and lost the top spot to a more disciplined pilot.

Mavericks make for great fictional characters. But this is the real world. A dangerous, complicated world where the president's every utterance has real consequences. Sometimes, those consequences are economic, as when President Bush switched the words "deflation" and "devaluation" and sent Asian markets tumbling. Sometimes, those consequences are American lives.

John McCain is a great man. A hero. Only the blindly partisan would deny him that respect. But he's the wrong man. America doesn't need another maverick...

America needs an Iceman.

Comments

[starboymikey]

My closest friend had half his face blown off by a mortar in Vietnam, disfiguring him for life. I have never once in over thirty years heard him use the word "gook" or any other racial epithet.

Now, I can understand someone who was a POW and tortured saying things like this in a privte moment of anguish. But if he wants to be POTUS, he'd better learn to control such outbursts during the campaign and once in office.

And calling his wife a c*nt? Hooo, boy. If Bill Clinton or Barack Obama said that, and the press got wind of it, they'd be burned at the stake.

[MajorKong]

It's much easier to kill people if you dehumanize them first. That way it's not like you're killing real people, they're just "gooks" or "slopes" or "ragheads" or "nips" or "le boche".

[definitelyNOTmisterRIGHT]

MajorKong, gee, thanks! that makes it okay then!

[JohnFromCensornati]

You must mean that he's a hero sandwich.

[RadioResearch]

I suspect that McCain will always hate "gooks."

When I served in country we were not allowed to use the term in our unit (we were only allowed to use the term ZIP - an acronym for Category Z: Indigenous Personnel) . Our CO would have had our asses. "Gook" is not merely a racist term but is an intentional dehumanizing term that purposely diminishes the humanity and respect for your enemy. He doesn't have the insight to understand that if you disrespect your enemy you will ultimately underesteimate him - to your own peril, as he should know because they shot him down - the dumb-ass pilot that he was.

McCain needs to grow up and come to terms with his hatred of his former enemy. His responses are adolescent at best and reflects a lack of understanding of the VN war and its origins. But then, he was a legacy student at the Academy and finished near the bottom so he probably didn't do all that well in his military oriented classes let alone history.

If the man is a VN hero then every grunt who fought there should get a medal of honor for having been sent to a bogus war.

[grendl]

Amen. And its more admirable to rise above your hate, as you have done than keep those fires burning as Senator McCains seems to be doing, by perpetuating the same mindset in Iraq, and failing to even bother to differentiate Sunnis from Shia, AlQaeda, from Iranians.

I think all people who serve this country should be seen as heroes, but those who send them, well they have to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

We don't need a commander in chief having flashbacks to a war he thought we never should've abandoned.

And good point about the reason he was shot down. Arrogance and underestimating the enemy.

[SFkid]

This gook thinks JM needs to be sent back to the VC POW camp for another lashing.

[MajorKong]

I don't like McCain, but I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

[grendl]

Can you explain why John McCain is a great man?

I'm not blindly partisan, I would just like to know the facts which make him great. Because a grown man, and potential commander in chief of the world's most powerful nation singing and joking about "Bombing Iran" doesn't really smack of greatness to me.

And a man who doesn't bother to learn the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, doesn't smack of greatness to me. There are some who suggest leaving that POW camp in Viet Nam would've ended John McCains dreams of ever becoming a public servant in politics, by cashing in on his father's admiral status. What motive did he have for staying?

Greatness is a term used a bit too liberally today, imho. And if the gloves are off in this campaign, and its really as important for a Democrat to win the White House, such hyperbole should be relegated for the likes of Martin Luther King, not John McCain.

[hopeless277]

John McCain is not a great man. He's not even a hero. He cofessed for god's sake. And we all know that confessions during torture and the only acceptable kind to a Republican. John McCain is a scapegoat. To be blamed when he does not win the WH. You'll hear this line many, many times after November: John McCain lost because he wasn't a 'real ' conservative. Any man that avocates war is no hero. Any man that avocated war is insane.