The Cult of The Warrior -- Jack Kemp Was Right: McCain Would Be Too Dangerous as President
In 2000 Jack Kemp (former congressman and Bob Dole's vice presidential candidate) told me, "McCain is a war maker, and I'm a peacemaker, so is George Bush. McCain would be too dangerous as President." (By the way, I noted this conversation in my book Crazy For God long before McCain was running for President in 2008 -- and therefore before Kemp's statement was topical.)
Jack and I were arguing on the phone about the then Republican primaries. I still had Jack's home number from back in the 80s when I was a right wing activist and regular guest in his home. In 2000 I liked McCain -- in contrast to Bush -- so I had briefly jumped back into some Republican political activism, something I'd gotten rusty at after I bailed because of what might be called post right-wing-nut stress disorder, i.e., burnout. Trying to stop Bush seemed like a patriotic duty, so I dusted off old phone books and sallied forth to no avail. Bush not only won, Bush soon sent my Marine son to a war of choice.
These days Jack Kemp (just like the rest of the Republican establishment) is supporting McCain. But in 2000 the Republican establishment's suspicion of McCain was overt. McCain -- went the word in the insider's Republican network -- was "unstable."
Now that McCain is the Republican's man of the hour, Republican heavy hitters are conveniently forgetting that for years they have regarded McCain as mentally unfit for the presidency. Back in 2000 I thought they were wrong and just didn't like McCain because of his "maverick" label.
I changed my mind because McCain has confirmed the worst possible take on his character. He's done this by blindly parroting Bush on the war in Iraq, and now he's even attacking Senator Obama in lock step with Bush's slander about Obama being an "appeaser" of Iran.
McCain has done this even though it is President Bush who has (though the Iraq War) empowered Iran to become the power that most threatens Israel and Middle Eastern stability.
McCain wants to not only stay in Iraq, he promises "victory." As the father of a Marine who served in the Bush/McCain war, this sounds plain nuts to me. How do you define victory in Iraq? Apparently by lying about Senator Obama, denouncing diplomacy and embracing stupid unwinnable wars -- forever.
McCain is more dangerous to America than Bush ever was -- hard to imagine, but true. Bush turned out to be nothing more than an empty suit easily manipulated and terminally obstinate. But there was a certain sense to his foolishness.
There was a business template to hold Bush's actions up to that made them intelligible, even while they were horribly wrong. So we understood (in a grim sort of way) what Bush was doing by feeding billions of our dollars to Halliburton, Blackwater, Boeing et al. It was ugly and he squandered American lives, he made the world a more dangerous place, he coddled and set Iran up as a regional power, thus betraying Israel. Yet there was a sort of ugly logic nonetheless. Bush wasn't a Dr. Strangelove, just the defense and oil business community's lap dog.
Not McCain. McCain isn't a civilian. He sees himself as in tune with a higher calling. He sees himself as a military man first and everything else comes second, including our economic interests.
It is no accident that McCain's memoir is titled Faith of My Fathers. Faith is the operative word here, faith as in religion, faith as in blind belief in things that reason might refute.
On the cover of McCain's memoir are pictures of McCain's military ancestors and of course Senator McCain as a young military man. To McCain and his family, military service is a religion, a self-defining way of life, the question and the answer.
McCain's reasons for keeping America at war in Iraq are religious, the expression of the cult of the warrior -- the liturgy of combat. No matter what war we were in right now McCain would say "stay the course" and "on to victory!" He'd do this in the same way that any priest would want to finish a liturgy, mass or service once begun, no matter what disturbances might threaten to interrupt it.
McCain is dangerous because he wants to do what is "honorable" according to voices the rest of us -- including ordinary sane men and women in uniform -- don't hear. McCain isn't driven to do what is good for America, or even good for our military men and women. For instance, he is against the new GI Bill that would give fair educational benefits to our men and women. McCain doesn't want to give them anything that might entice them to do anything but go to war, again and again and again. McCain serves the warrior god of his warrior ancestors, not America's best interests or even the interests of our soldiers.
McCain doesn't want to let down his grandfather, John Sidney McCain or his father, the admiral. Morality has nothing to do with it. America has nothing to do with it. Iraq as nothing to do with it. McCain is keeping faith with ghosts.
A New Guinea tribesman on a revenge ambush mission, a soldier in Agamemnon's army, a German general in 1944 would all "get" McCain's faith--and recognize a true brother. On the other hand George Washington and our founders would be appalled. McCain is no Washingtonian American citizen soldier. McCain is a lifetime (and very un-American) militarist.
McCain concludes his memoir as follows:
"...My father and grandfather had their last conversation. Near the end of his life, my father recalled their final moments together: 'My father said to me, son, there is no greater thing than to die for the principles -- for the country and the principles that you believe in...' I had remembered a dying man's legacy to his son, and when I needed it most... I held on to the memory."
What are "the principles" McCain's father, grandfather (and he) agreed they needed to "die for," or send others to die for? They are the "principles" of the warrior: victory or death, a cult as old (and Old World) and destructive as human history itself.
A McCain presidency would essentially be a militarist coup. Don't get me wrong, most actual military people I know despise McCain-style notions of death, victory and sacrifice for sacrifice's sake, let alone "victory" and "glory" held up as a sentimental family religion. They know that this is the BS that gets people klled for no reason.
Jack Kemp was right: McCain is too dangerous to make President.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back"
Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
McCain has nothing to lose. He may be turning the screws. Bush beware.
With McCain, this goes deep, very deep. It is his defining worldview, his very identity.
Yes, be afraid, not in the fear-mongering way but in the rational sort of way.
Thank you, Frank, for saying it so clearly.
As a Naval Academy classmate of John McCain’s and someone who went through basic flight training with him, I find it very sad to be able to see and concur with the absolute truth in what you have to say about John ... but given the facts, I can only appreciate that you say it so well.
In my opinion John McCain is playing out a roll that is constructed of delusion, illusion and deceit. He seems to have repudiated the parts of the Naval Academy Honor Code that address honesty ... and chosen to live the life of a subservient sycophant who has crawled so far up Bush's rear end he can't see the light of day. This is sad for me because I really loved the man he was ... back then.
As a wife, mother, niece, etc of the military I'm glad to concurr. We, wives and mothers, often had to express to others that the military is not made up those with a warrior mentality only. Recognizing the need for this mentality in the seals, special ops, and marines I applaud that their leaders have more lauditary philosophies. I cringe listening to how often the fact of being a POW is held up as enoug to be head honcho. We have had so many military leaders, Colin Powell, who reflect the whole gamut of what it takes to be a leader. But it seems we have a whole lot more, speaking out, of those with limited and narrow views.
McCain is a Khrushchev Republican; he will bury us!
What is sad is everyone questioning Obama's patriotism but McCain is against the GI Bill. Under Bush, soldiers are losing benefits and coming home to houses in foreclosures and no jobs but yet they want to question Obama who has been helping men and women veterans. I think what they want to ask is not if you are patriot enough Obama but are you white enough. They are scared that you are too black and maybe get into the white house and turn whites into slaves. Silly isn't but I actually read a few blogs saying that sort of thinking. I say if we get McCain into the WH he will for sure go to war with Iran.I believe he wants revenge and he's one of those army men who would rather die in combat versus coming home.John McCain first started out against Bush but now they are two peas in the pod. I say as citizens we better listen to every word he says throughout this general election because what he says will make a difference on your vote.
Not only is he crazy he's also senile. This is no bs. Watch the man and you can see it all. When he's prepped he puts on a good show, but get him in front of some cameras and people who are really going to ask hard questions he starts to fold. He'll start joking or attacking- but it's all a screen while the internal wheels start to go off track.
America this man is really really dangerous and he has no business being the most powerful man on earth. He'd probably take us back to Viet Nam!
I look forward to the debates. He'll end up making gaffes that will make Ford's verbal gaffe about Iron Curtain nations seem trivial. (But Obama's camp should insist that each candidate gets to ask one cross-examination question for each topic a moderator brings up.)
The problem is the voting public of that era, who were knowledgeable about world issues and demanded integrity from politicians, are mostly dead. People back then just could not accept a leader capable of such an egregious (yet trivial) mental lapse. Voters today are just plain clueless.
"a German general in 1944 would all "get" McCain's faith--and recognize a true brother. "
Do you really feel OK with calling McCain a Nazi? Don't you think that one is a bit of a low blow and getting tired?
"A McCain presidency would essentially be a militarist coup."
Says who? You? Your assumptions in this article and several others I have read on this site make me inclined to believe that you are being paid to dream up wild shit for the lunatic fringe and shovel it out to the willing masses that is HuffPost. So who cut you a check this time?
And, once again, why do you feel the need to tell us your bio in every article? It's like the guy that says "trust me". Never trust a guy that says "trust me".
Uh, most german generals worth a damn were not nazis, a lot of them tried to kill Hitler, and most of them had wished the plot would've succeeded. Look up Erwin Rommel, sometime.
No less a Republican than Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of militarizing our government. Now we have mercs in our employ killing noncombatants with impunity, we are continuing to detain ordinary Iraqis after their courts have dismissed charges against them.
Is that an honorable cause? Are we keeping our country safe by raising a generation of Iraqis on a diet of religious bigotry, injustice and, yes, terror? I think we will have to work very hard to repair the damage we haver done over there if we do not want to face a bloodier future conflict.
McCain, at this point, doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong with our present course of action. The definition of insanity is to continually repeat the same action, expecting a different result.
I don't think the point was to call McCain a Nazi. It was to give an example of a military on the brink of losing a war that fights on anyways.
Let us harken back to the refrain of 1992: "IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!"
We are tired of warriors running Washington and killing our husbans, fathers and sons. We are tired that 37 million children go to bed hungry every night while this senseless war takes money that could feed them. We are tired of our soldiers retuning home from this war wounded and not given a decent place to be cared for or the medical help and training they need to help the come back as proud men. We are tired of jobs being sent oversea while Americans have to decide what bills to put off until later. America is yearning to become a party of the global community and be strong and proud again. Warriors aare there for their own glory, not ours. No Republican mini Bush in the shite House. Not Now, Never Again.
What "warriors" are running DC? Warriors are for there own glory? What glory? This isn't Sparta or the Roman Legions, if it were, perhaps we would be better off.
We have had warriors as President: Washington, Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower. We have also had veterans: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter.
The problem for the last eight years is that we have had neither warriors or veterans. Our problems have not arisen from warriors or veterans. They have arisen from chicken hawks.
This is an excellent blog that sums up everything I fear about a McCain presidency (and it sums up Bush Jr's administration pretty well too). It also decribes everything that is twisted about the constant appellation of McCain as a "hero". McCain wasn't a hero of the war; he was a victim--certainly his psyche was.
We're unlikely to read a more succinct summary of McCain's personality. HuffPo might want to start building an archive of McCain 101 articles.
http://www
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Be afraid? No, just vote Democratic.
Fear is the killer of the mind. Be courageous. What allowed some WW2 soldiers to acts of heroism? They accepted they were good as dead, and cared more about going out with a fight.
Just vote Democratic? No. Voting for Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, and their ilk will not avert neocon warmongering. Can anyone say Pelosi is really making a difference in government policy? The answer? When in doubt, vote against the Incumbent.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
