John McCain, Neocon

The canonization of John McCain has begun. In his Monday New York Times column, William Kristol suggested that McCain isn't simply a candidate for president. He's something more-the next Winston Churchill who can lead the U.S. to victory in the war on terror. According to Kristol, who has long been a close friend of McCain's and quoted him reciting a turgid Victorian poem, he is a "not-so-modern type. One might call him a neo-Victorian - rigid, self-righteous and moralizing, but (or rather and) manly, courageous and principled." For both Kristol and David Brooks, McCain epitomizes the belief in American national greatness that can replicate the glories of the nineteenth century British empire. In reality, their anachronistic exaltation of warfare as the highest test of manly courage may end up ruining the U.S., much as it did the British empire.

The neoconservative obsession with the Victorian era is longstanding-and most revealing. It dates back to Kristol's own mother, Gertrude Himmelfarb, a prominent historian who has long sought to rehabilitate the often-scorned Victorians. In a series of books, including a new collection of essays just released by Yale titled The Spirit of the Age, she has mythologized the Victorians for shunning welfare and relying on thrift and self-initiative to create a benevolent empire. Himmelfarb and other neoconservatives such as Midge Decter believe that the rise of post-Victorian mores, including homosexuality and feminism, have weakened the manly virtues that are necessary for defending the homeland.

The neoconservatives, who believe, or pretend to believe, that supposed foes abroad always represent new Hitlers and that wimpy liberals are about to recapitulate the appeasement that English liberals espoused in the 1930s, are constantly searching for a new Churchill. They see Churchill as the last great representative of the Victorian era in contrast to the weaklings that surrounded him. (George W. Bush himself keeps a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office.) For the neocons, McCain, a military hero who has written a number of books and become a politician, eerily resembles Churchill himself. McCain himself has made his admiration for Churchill abundantly apparent in his most recent book, Hard Call, in which he hails the great man's prescience in warning of Germany's aggressive intentions in the run-up to both World War I and World War II. But more to the point, McCain represents for the neocons the ultimate synthesis of war hero and politician. And McCain, in turn, has been increasingly drawn to the neocons' militaristic vision of the U.S. as an empire that can set wrong aright around the globe.

The neocons became close to McCain in the 1990s, when they supported American intervention in the Balkans. According to the New Republic's John Judis, the first sign of neocon influence on McCain came in 1999. McCain delivered a speech at Kansas State University in which he touted "national greatness conservatism," arguing: "The United States is the indispensable nation because we have proven to be the greatest force for good in human history." He went on to state that the U.S. should have "every intention of continuing to use our primacy in world affairs for humanity's benefit."

Since then, McCain has, of course, become the most prominent advocate of ramping up the U.S. effort in Iraq, not to mention Sudan and a variety of other hotspots. If McCain becomes president, the neocons will be in charge.

It's no small irony that they may well end up destroying the very American empire they seek to expand, just as the British empire collapsed during the past century.

Jacob Heilbrunn is the author of the newly released, They Knew They Were Right: the Rise of the Neocons, and a senior editor at the National Interest.

Comments

[BlobbyRL]

I can remember when John McCain was one of Bushco's fiercest critics. Almost daily he made pronouncements declaring their ineptitude and their general lack of anything resembling integrity. We all see now that this WAS really the case, but something changed with John McCain....I can almost name the very day he turned around and started to champion the Bush administration's efforts and rationale..as if he'd been sleeping on a pod.....or in a more realistic sense; replaced. A man, very similar in appearance, became John McCain, after the REAL john McCain was done away with. Far fetched? Maybe. Ask Bob Wells.

[charlesrfd2003]

I wish you would quit calling these neocons, conservative. They are REACTIONARY. The Republican party is no longer conservative. The moderates are gone. When you want to go back to the 1890 to 1920 era, you are a REACTIONARY.

[Mariel]

McCain is really bad. Too bad the public is nuts and does not vote for the better candidates. But perhaps once past the "South" people will reject him on several grounds that matter to them. The public wants out of the war, and he wants us to be more in to the war. He'll lose.

Then we have to decide if we want the other inferior candidates.

May I suggest Edwards 08 and if not Edwards then Huckabee, who horrifies most of you but would be a thousand times saner than McCain and is "too liberal" to be a Neo-con.

Think, stupid people, what you'd really like to have in the White House.

[Garvagh]

As an admirer of Winston Churchill, I have to say that John McCain totally lacks Churchill's sense of global strategy. McCain thinks the US is fighting enemies of this country by squandering hundreds of billions of dollars on the Iraq adventure. Iran could be a friend of the US, but McCain might very well attack it! Did Churchill attack Spain? Spain's dictator had been installed with help from Hitler. McCain and Bush seem to lack altogether a sense of history and an understanding of the cultures of the Middle East. McCain would be a stooge of the neocons.

[Dadoftwins]

Like most people, I admire McCain's personal courage. However, McCain would be the worst possible presidential choice of all candidates in either party. We don't need a 19th century, gun boat mentality in the 21st century. McCain never saw a war he didn't want to participate in and if you like Bush/Cheney politics, you will love McCain. On the domestic front, he doesn't believe in consensus or compromise and hasn't a clue about solving the economic issues this nation faces. As for his integrity, has everybody forgotten his smarmy involvement in the savings and loan scandal? McCain is the sword bearer for the neo-cons like Kristol and Brooks and they will work hard for his election so that they can have their war with Iran. I pray that John McCain never has access to nuclear weapons.

[rmreddicks]

McCain grew up U.S. Navy privileged. He dropped bombs on poor people from 'godly' heights. He blew his sweet navy deal. He was shot down. He paid a real price for his thoughtless follies. We have(so far)just lived through one extended adolescent as president. Anybody wants him - take him to your next picnic and let him tell his stories.

[baghdadjoe]

As ridiculous and obviously bad as McCain is, we must all remember that Hillary Clinton is cut from the same cloth, and nearly as bad on the issues that really matter, like US middle east genocide and out-of-control American militarism.

Hillary Clinton is one of the kingpins in the neoconservative DLC, the very same organization that brought us Joe Lieberman and other neoconservative scoundrels. Clinton and McCain presidencies would probably be more similar than different.

This is why Hillary will have a hard time getting a lot of support for the general should she win the Dem nomination. Progressives are not really up for "more of the same" after the last 15 years.

[DanDeVries]

"The United States is the indispensable nation because we have proven to be the greatest force for good in human history." What a sick joke that is.

[Bob Egan]

McCain has ridden that "I was a P.O.W." long enough! The only difference between him and Bush, is that he caught on to Rumsfelds stupidity sooner!

[katzenmom]

Frightening, isn't it, just how delusional the neo-cons are... Or, do they simply realize how readily Average Joe will swallow the crap about America being "the greatest force for good in human history"?

Like the Victorians and the leaders of the Britsh Empire in that era, the boosters of American imperialism have one motive: GREED! And the vast right-wing neo-con conspiracy has turned our public educational system into a national disgrace in its efforts to ensure that an ignorant populace will support their efforts at self-enrichment.

Shame on the rest of us for allowing this to continue!

[zendem1]

Victorian age? So we're moving backwards in time. Great.

[townsurrl]

McCain represents all of those who still can't get over "losing" Vietnam and have a need to keep on fighting with a smile and a bibble. He needs to head for Florida and retire his body and mind on some beach with a bottle of whisky to help him realize that this is 2008 and the platinum blond is no more a color of choice among the young generation of people.

[KarenZipdrive]

McCain:

1. Crazy
2. Angry
3. Old
and the worst thing...
4. NeoCon

It's almost as if Dick Cheney is running. No thanks.

[ApolloSpeaks]

It seems like pre-World War II all over again. Again the nations choose to sleep ignoring a terrifying regime rising in their midst with a mandate from hell to rule them. Again the appeasers cower before the beast hoping to placate his pitiless heart with offerings of peace. As "peace in our time" quickly turns into war millions are slaughtered and ground into dust. The Iran-Iraq War, with its million dead and injured, is prelude of worse to come. It"s a sign of what will follow if we reward the mullahs for their evil and they triumphantly get the bomb.

The man who said that "worse than bombing Iran is letting the mullahs get the bomb" is my choice for President. That man is John McCain, a man of courage, a man of conviction, a man of strength. John McCain for President! the man most feared by Iran.

[Overd0g]

McCain is an open borders advocate. He can't win the Presidency. Period.