The Straight Talk Train Wreck

Now I'm not one to kick a man when he's down, nor even to hit him when he's wobbly. But
watching John McCain's poll numbers stay strangely resilient despite the virtual disintegration of his campaign, I feel compelled to share a cautionary tale of my own firsthand experience with the Straight-Talk Express. That hell-bent freight train rolled over me a couple years ago and I haven't felt the same since. Back then, I was something of a McCain admirer. Today, I have a different story to tell - one that helps explain the tortuous path the McCain camp has taken in recent weeks through the scorched earth of a deteriorating candidacy. This path, one could say, is prelude; what I've learned watching McCain seek the White House should give anyone pause about the prospect of him occupying it.

So here's what happened. John McCain was featured prominently in my documentary film Why We Fight, which premiered at Sundance in 2005. In pre-screenings of the film across the country before its theatrical release, John McCain wowed audiences with his outspoken words onscreen. On the subject of U.S. foreign policy, he said "Where the debate and controversy begins is how far does the United States go and when does it go from a force for good to a force of imperialism?" About defense industry corruption, he declared, "President Eisenhower's concern about the military-industrial complex -- his words have unfortunately come true." In specific, McCain criticized not only the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war but even the contracting and billing practices of Halliburton.

In November '05, as the theatrical release of Why We Fight approached, I visited Washington for a follow-up with the Senator, both as a courtesy and hoping he might appear at the film's premiere. I arrived early for my appointment, and his receptionist pointed me to a seat on the couch. She was busy fielding a torrent of calls. "Senator McCain's office, please hold," she said repeatedly. "The office of Senator McCain, please hold...."

On a TV flickering silently, the Senate was in a frenzied session on the administration's handling of pre-war intel on Iraq. Watching the charade of partisan posturing onscreen, I wondered if Americans outside the Beltway even cared at all. The calls coming in to the receptionist suggested they did. From her responses, the callers seemed concerned with a wide array of subjects facing the Senator. "The Senator is unavailable at the moment," she would say. "May I pass on a message? Yes he is familiar with that issue. You say you support it? Yes? I will pass that on to the Senator. Thank you for calling." Some version of this conversation recurred ten times in the first 15 minutes I was there.

During a lull, I approached the receptionist and asked her how many such calls she fields each
day. "Oh hundreds," she smiled. "Is there a system for passing all this on to the Senator?" I asked. "Oh yes," she replied, brandishing a steno pad with an immaculate handwritten tally of the views expressed. "I share this with him at the end of the day." Impressed and inspired, I returned to the visitor's couch. For a moment, Washington seemed to be working for America.

As I waited, though, I noted a conversation taking place on the opposite side of the waiting room. There at a conference table was a group of businessmen meeting with two of the Senator's staffers. I hid myself in a magazine and pretended not to listen. From what I could gather, the businessmen represented a defense interest seeking the Senator's support for some system produced by their firm. It was pretty ironic. There I was, having made a film that investigates military-industrial-congressional corruption, and after less than an hour in Washington I was already witnessing in microcosm the tension of forces acting on public policy. On my right, the voices of Eisenhower's "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" seeking their Senator's ear through his receptionist's headset. On my left, representatives of the military-industrial sector, seeking with quiet confidence to influence the Senator on a matter of mutual interest.

A balanced picture? How could it be, really? Given the grotesque costs of elections and the
need for members of Congress to bring home jobs, the most important people for any politician, Republican or Democrat, are those whose companies create jobs and generate contributions. And for the most part, that's not you and me. Most Americans don't meet their politicians. Half the country doesn't vote. Ninety-six percent don't write campaign checks.

I didn't see the Senator that day but met instead with his Chief of Staff Mark Salter. I explained to Mr. Salter that Senator McCain's outspoken onscreen remarks were proving popular with audiences weary of the status quo. I told him I wanted to arrange events to inspire public discourse and hoped the Senator might appear. Salter had bigger fish to fry, thanked me perfunctorily for my visit, and that was that.

But I could never have anticipated what happened next. The film was released nationally in
January 2006. A few days later, I got a call from an agitated Mark Salter. He didn't recall my
visit, hadn't seen the film, and after a panicked battery of questions, demanded I send him a
copy. As promised during our November meeting, I had already sent him an advance copy,
which I pointed out was already in his office. He asked me to hold, presumably confirmed this,
then came back on the line to say he'd get back to me.

When next I heard from Salter, panic had grown to fury. He said the Senator's critical comments
about the dangers of preemption and of American imperialism could give the mistaken impression McCain was opposed to the Iraq war and the Bush Administration broadly. But the moment in the film that was his greatest concern was when, responding to a question about the controversial awarding of no-bid contracts to Halliburton, McCain concedes, "It looks bad. It looks bad. And apparently, Halliburton more than once has overcharged the federal government. That's wrong." When pressed on how he would tackle this problem, McCain boldly declares, "I would have a public investigation of what they've done."

At that moment in the film, a phone rings off-screen and Senator McCain is advised by a staffer
that Vice-President Cheney is calling. With a nervous laugh, the Senator excuses himself. "The
vice-president's on the phone," he stammers, rising and scrambling off-screen, leaving the
camera rolling on his empty chair. Different people see this scene differently. Some see McCain's sudden departure as perfectly normal. He's a high-ranking Senator, and the Vice-President is calling. Others see McCain's departure as evidence of a too-close relationship with Cheney. They note a certain embarrassment in McCain's body language. To yet a smaller, third group, McCain's reaction underscores Dick Cheney's omnipotence in Washington. Given the Administration's penchant for wiretapping, one viewer laughingly told me he thought perhaps "Cheney had decided the interview had gone on long enough."

Jokes aside, when McCain's office voiced their concern about this moment, I expected, if
anything, they might fear the suggestion of uncomfortably close ties between McCain and Cheney. When Salter instead declared to me that I was "making it look like John McCain was critical of the Vice-President," and that "Vice-President Cheney has nothing to do with Halliburton," I realized that what he was objecting to was not that McCain might have appeared too close to Cheney but rather not close enough. Mr. Salter demanded that I send him a transcript of the Senator's interview, not just the parts that appear in the film. Since none of the film's more than twenty other interviewees had been provided such a thing, and since I valued the film's independence from political pressure, I told Mr. Salter I would seek advice from other journalists and get back to him.

Salter next resorted to threats, saying that, unless I complied, he would smear my name in the
media and exert pressure on the film's principal funder never to work with me again. I said I
thought the BBC would be unlikely to welcome such pressure from an irate chief of staff to a
senator. Salter then changed gears, appealing to my sense of fairness. "When Senator McCain
sat down to talk to you," he explained, "he thought he was talking to a television crew from the
BBC." I said that that was true, but that the film had then gone on to win Sundance and secure a
theatrical release. But then something troubling about his remark dawned on me.

"If you don't mind my asking," I said, "are you suggesting there are things Senator McCain will
say to a British audience that he isn't comfortable saying to the American people?"Needless to say, this didn't help matters. But I wasn't trying to be snide. My question was just the logical extension of what Salter had intimated. But it clearly touched a nerve. He became enraged and, after hanging up, sought to make good on his threat to tarnish my name and career.

On February 8, 2006, in an article in Roll Call entitled "An Angry Star is Born," Mary Ann Akers wrote, "Attention, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.): You're not the only punching bag for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). The 2008 presidential hopeful is also really mad at the producer of the
Sundance Film Festival award-winning film 'Why We Fight''...McCain -- and especially his chief of staff -- think the movie producer intentionally twisted McCain's few lines in the film so that he comes off as critical of Vice-President Cheney."

The article goes on to quote Mr. Salter as calling me a "slippery son of a gun" and accusing me of "'doing manipulative editing' to make it look like McCain is questioning Cheney's involvement in the awarding of contracts to Halliburton..." Salter then offered Roll Call the same peculiar argument he gave me about British television. "McCain thought he was doing an interview on Iraq with the BBC," Salter told Roll Call, "'turns out to be a theatrically released film in the United States.'" Salter then underscored McCain's fondness for Cheney, lest the film leave anyone with the impression that he was in any way critical of the Vice-President. The Senator, the article quoted Salter to say, has "complete respect for Mr. Cheney's integrity."

Salter also kept his promise to inform the BBC about my alleged misconduct. He contacted them, after which they called me, nonplussed and a bit bemused at the strange culture of Washington. Ultimately, the episode came and went, and the McCain camp's efforts against me subsided. Looking back, of course, it was all about damage control to ensure that the Senator's
presidential ambitions not be imperiled by a film in which he could be seen as critical of the Bush Administration. They hoped to distance McCain from his own words, which was pointedly disheartening for me, as I had seen so many audiences be so moved by them.

But the larger moral of my story became clear in recent weeks as the McCain camp entered a pattern of spiraling electoral thuggery that bears all the markings of the behavior I experienced. First came McCain's petulant withdrawal from Larry King, compounded by the vitriol Sarah Palin directed at the mainstream press at the Convention. But as the McCain candidacy unraveled over the weeks that followed, with his own staffers coming to call Palin a "Diva" and a "whack job"and both sides sowing the seeds for a post-election blame game, the strategy of shooting the messenger has proven to be just another bizarre flare-up in the fog of a turbulent campaign. Arguably, when your opponent can outspend you 4 to 1 on advertising, offending the free-of-charge mainstream press, which John McCain once called "my base," might not be the best idea. So why did they do it? Why all the fuss and desperation? Where does the palpable insecurity within the McCain camp come from? And what does it tell us?

The superficial answer to these questions lies in my own experience as a precursor to what I
have seen play out in the campaign. In her strident debut, Palin played the straight-talk card in
describing McCain. "Wherever he goes and whoever is listening, John McCain is the same man!" she declared. Like so many of the talking points she was given, one can assume these words were carefully crafted to unmake a prevailing impression the McCain team perceives as a liability. This time, it was the fact that McCain is widely perceived as politically slippery - a politician who says different things to different people. For me, witnessing the John McCain who courageously appeared in my film and the later McCain whose staff went after me for sharing his thoughts with the American public, I've seen firsthand how the Straight-Talk Express really works.

Basically, the train tends to veer off its rails whenever its "maverick" conductor goes off-script,
pandering to one desired constituency in a way that alienates another. His handlers in the
caboose are then left scrambling to undo impressions they fear will come back to haunt them.
When the train gets out of control, taking their campaign someplace they didn't mean to go, they try to backtrack at all cost. So whether this means dissing David Letterman or bullying a lowly filmmaker like me, no contortion is so great that they won't indulge it if it helps the train reach Pennsylvania Avenue. Now, I don't really expect straight talk from politicians, but when a
politician makes "straight talk" his claim to fame, he actually gets my hopes up. In McCain's case, I learned the hard way that the Straight Talk Express is actually just political stagecraft of the most cynical and cutthroat kind.

But on a deeper level, I sense that all the problems of managing McCain's public image are
ultimately a reflection of a profound division in McCain's own soul as he runs for the presidency. His awkward manner, his sidekick's rogue behavior, his campaign's erratic relations with the press and public - all this radio static speaks volumes about the deeper insecurity and unresolved persona of the man himself - qualities so glaring no amount of lipstick or campaign theatrics can hide them.

The problem for McCain is that his career - and in particular his strained relations with the Bush camp -- does not offer a coherent, consistent message for a candidacy. Here is a man whose prevailing legacy is that he was a tortured American POW. And yet, in fear of losing the party base, he was forced to engage from day one in a slippery political dance on the most sensitive issue of his life, going some distance to apply the principles of his experience, yet not so far that he might be perceived as critical of the President. Thus, instead of becoming a vital reminder of how America can cannibalize her young people in a misbegotten war, McCain let his ambition for the White house ally him with an Administration on the wrong side of history, condoning the morally shameful enterprise they engineered in Iraq. By doing this, instead of helping America avoid repeating history, he became one willing to block out even his own memories and pretend, as he did in his speech about 2013, that there can ever be "victory with honor" in a war like that in Iraq. Deep down, McCain must know that after giving themselves to a war of lies, cynicism, and corruption, young people return home with less than they started out with. But instead of representing this wisdom and sparing another generation of young Americans the anguish he experienced, McCain sold them out in order that he might win the chance to occupy that same office from which he was once misguidedly commanded into harm's way.

With all due respect to the inner challenges McCain faces as he tries to reconcile the politician
with the human being, what America most needs today -- alongside an unrelentingly engaged
public - is deep, inspired, and coherent leadership, not a continuation of the personal insecurity, confused morality, and political opportunism that got us where we are.

Eugene Jarecki's 2006 film "Why We Fight" won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival as well as a Peabody Award. This posting is an excerpt from his new book, The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril. It has just been released by Simon & Schuster/Free Press.

Comments

[alioop2008]

Brilliant and insightful article. McCain has made a Mephistophelean bargain in his quest for the presidency and run the straight talk express into the gutter. Disillusioned right-wingers and undecideds welcome!

Here's the link to the Rolling Stone article mentioned above: "Make-believe Maverick" http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

[Hagar7]

Really thought-provoking article (Iooking forward to seeing your film now as well!). It seems to me that John McCain earned his endorsement from Dick Cheney in many ways and on many levels. And while I think the Straight Talk Express has done a fine job of derailing itself, it would be sweet, tasty irony to find out during what is bound to be a really ugly campaign post-mortem that the Cheney endorsement was the final nail in that coffin.

[mia41003]

This article IS thought-provoking, as is the film Why We Fight. I recommend everyone look at Jarecki's interview on Democracy Now as well.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/20/eugene_jarecki_on_the_american_way

Very interesting.

[mheister]

McCain wasn't "misguidedly commanded into harm's way", he volunteered. Not only was he a volunteer in the US Navy, but he specifically requested to serve in Vietnam, and had to pull strings (his father was Admiral McCain) to get that assignment because of a less-than-stellar military record. Also, a fair argument may be made that McCain was shot down as a result of his own poor judgment in the sky. Check out the Rolling Stone piece on McCain.

[freedomfighter1]

Very good points mheister! I agree 100%

[bjupton]

Clearly, the author was talking about the stupidity of the the Vietnam War.

[Lust4Lost]

I want to know if McCain would support and push a congressional resolution that states NO state may receive more in federal tax $$ than they pay out.
Right now it is the red states that receive significantly more back in fed aid than they pay in taxes. Isn't this socialism? Isn't this an enormous redistribution of wealth?

[Cloball]

Great documentary. McCain actually called for a commission on Halliburton! Sound familiar?

I liked how you tied in the war with Iraq and what Eisenhower had feared the U.S. would one day do.

I know what you mean about McCain, I feel sorry for him now too, but really admired him back in 2000. I thought for sure he'd beat Bush and his smart allecky grin in the primary!

[ramsha]

Socialism in contrast to Capitalism is defined as government intervention or partial or full ownership of the free market. What the Bush administration has done to avert the credit market collapse is one good example of "govt. intervention". Like it or not we are slowly and steadily being dragged in to a socialistic society. Many in our society, for various reasons cannot take care of ourselves or protect ourselves from predators in the free market. We need the Govt. to protect us and spread a socialistic net when we fall through the cracks. The degree to which we want the Govt. to stick its nose in our affairs may vary. But nevertheless we cannot survive as a society if every body was out for him/her self. This is what Barak Obama was talking about and John McCain has been criticizing as though it is a disastrous and catastrophic word. Don’t you want your aging grandparents or a disabled child or sibling given special concessions in our society?

[LightningJoe]

Isn't it plain by now, that pure socialism (communism) and pure capitalism ("free market" capitalism) are equally inept at doing what they say they will do?

Communism cites an impeccable tenet: From each, according to ability; to each, according to need. What more does one need, than just what one needs? Needs fulfilled, what more can you ask?

Trouble is, fallible humans needed to oversee that system, and that was its downfall. Likewise with capitalism. Greedy humans have to oversee the system, and the system therefore takes on the aspects of human greed (also known as forced inequity).

Socialism and Capitalism are two abstract poles, at either end of a continuum of possible economic systems. Obviously, the better way lies somewhere between. The main failure mode of both systems, however, is the same: the natural human failures of greed and a thirst for power. Against such a fault, government oversight is the proper (only?) remedy.

We need the middle way, and we need government oversight and regulation of whatever hybrid system we adopt.

[Sapna]

great article, thank you.

[BrianMac]

Great article!

It boils down to the fact that McCain and his campaign are trying to frame him as a rebel to the party whose platform he wants to stand on and upon whose support he depends. How can you be "part of the establishment" yet "apart from the establisment?" Having cake? Eating it too?

[MsLiz]

McCain has no followers, so how can he be a leader?

[intellectualindependent]

McCain's problem as of late has not been the so-called straight talk express running off the tracks but rather tne nasty consequences of the economics crisis. If one looks at polls in the weeks prior to the financial crisis specifically before Lehman Brothers collapsed, McCain was leading and/or tied in all national polls. As soon as Lehman Brothers collapsed and the ensuing crisis began McCain never could recover. The financial crisis was blamed on the Bush Administration and Americans began to even more associate McCain with President Bush essentially crushing any hopes he had of winning the White House. While I do agree to an extent with the notion that McCain is having trouble portraying himself as a maverick while at the same time not wanting to alienate the conservative right, however, McCain was never in dire fear of losing the conseverative right because few would ever vote for Obama, his major obstacle was convincing moderates who were unhappy with President Bush that he was conservative but not like President Bush. McCain always has an uphill battle as did every Republcan this election cycle, and the straight talk express was not derailled by miscommunication within his camp or problems with Sarah Palin but rather his inability to recover from the worst financial crisis our nation has seen in a century.

[rabprevent]

THE DOULBE TALK EXPRESS AT ITS BEST AS USUAL!

ANOTHER REASON TO VOTE NO TO THE LITTLE TROLL AND ALL HIS RACIST CRONIES, THE STINKING REPUBLICAN PARTY

[Fremon]

Let's face it, McCain is a myth. His greatest fortune in basically in his life (beside having been supported in his life by govt participat­ion,family name and history, and marrying into wealth) was his imprisonment. Now I honor that service and sacrifice as a brother Naval Officer of the early 60's but without that experience McCain would probably not be running for the Presidency. There would be little else to recommend him. For those looking into the Myth of McCain read the www.rollingstone.com article and if not in the recent issue do a search. If I remember it is titled Myth of McCain. Good reading for all those who want to know about his character and not the one of myth.

[mheister]

Thank you Fremon. It's fair to point out that Rolling Stone reports that McCain volunteered to fly combat missions in Vietnam to garner medals which would boost his Naval career. Being the son of a commanding admiral, McCain should have known he was a high-value target, and rather than diving straight in to let his bombs go after his instruments showed that North Vietnamese SAMs had a lock on him, he should have followed standard operating procedure and engaged in evasive maneuvers, which his plane was well capable of doing. Instead, he got shot down.

Fighter jets are expensive. The training the pilots receive is expensive too. While pilots do have to make snap decisions in combat, the procedures are in place for a reason. In short, McCain spent over five years as a POW because he disobeyed standing orders in pursuit of medals to pin on his chest to boost his Navy career.

Every time I hear someone say we need to honor McCain's service, that's what I recall about the man. Of course as patriotic Americans we should honor the service of everyone who has sacrificed for our nation, but I wonder also if we disserve other veterans by overplaying the service of some, especially when we don't put that service into its full context.

[Pacojam]

Wonderful article, very well written.

McCain is an example of what happens when political pandering supercedes eveything else, including what one believes in.

Obama took the unpopular stance of opposing the invasion of Iraq. At the time, it was quite a risk. Yet now it gives him an air of credibility and honesty.

That was what the old McCain had going for him -- real straight talk. Yet he sold himself-out. And with it went his self-respect, and as you put it "his soul".

[Jesster]

Thank you Pacojam, for pointing out "Obama's unpopular stance of opposing the invasion of Iraq"

McCain and his surrogates are found of claiming (aka: lying) that while McCain is a "maverick" who stands up to his own party but Obama always tows his party's line.

Aside from the fact that McCain has backed away from (flip-flopped) and reversed most of his "maverick" stances (he now says he wouldn't even vote for Bills he personally sponsored!)
Obama stood up to his party's leadership on perhaps the biggest issue of our time: "authorizing" the Iraq War.

As for when he stands by his party's positions - maybe that's because his party happens to be on the right side of the issue...?

[MsLiz]

toes his party's line

[Jesster]

Thank you Eugene, for your revealing and intensely thoughtful commentary. I feel your pain and dismay. In 1999/2000 I was a co-founder of a Pro-McCain website (I admit motivated in large part because of a strong intuitive / instinctual FEAR of a Bush presidency) and back then while I disagreed with him on many issues - I did genuinely respect and admire McCain.

Now, I have no idea who the "real" McCain is - but I sure don't want to find out the hard way. I think they way you were treated and threatened was merely despicable! After eight years of Bush/Cheney, I find the having "executive experience" be meaningless and even laughable. But your personal, first hand experience literally sent chills down my spine.

[Turnaround]

Mark Salter is a sleazy, salty wiener, and none too bright. One of the most sophomoric political speech writers on the scene today, and none too bright.

[catsanddogs]

Excellent article.
The only other I would recommend as just as good is on line at the New Yorker called "Odd Man Out" and is about Chuck Hagel. It has LOTS in it about McCain that is just as insightfull.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_bruck

[XME]

It's disturbing, but I don't think there's ANYTHING that McCain or do that would significantly drop his poll numbers (or votes). There are just so many people out there who will vote Republican NO MATTER WHAT...and this time around, we have to deal as well with the fact that there are those who will vote "white", no matter what.

This is why getting out the vote is CRITICAL.