This is Not the John McCain New Hampshire Once Loved

What happened to John McCain? What happened to the man so many of us in New Hampshire have admired and respected for so long? The fierce bipartisan warrior, the straight talker, the maverick whose ideas nearly everyone found some common ground with now seems missing in action. He seems to have betrayed the very attributes that originally commended him to us and earned our earlier trust and support.

We continue to stand in awe of his heroic service to his country during Vietnam, but now he shamelessly uses those experiences at every opportunity, as if it excuses him from having to answer any really tough questions about the economy or foreign policy. The answer to everything is not to mention his admittedly harrowing POW days. My experience interviewing heroes of war is that most prefer to deflect attention from themselves and let their record speak for itself. McCain seems to think that it buys him a permanent pass. But it is impossible to know how to fight the new wars if you are hopelessly lost in the old ones.

Surrounded and programmed by the lobbyists he once despised, the man who once effortlessly straddled the aisle and spoke from the heart now carefully hews to a prompter-read, soulless far-right agenda.

This is a man who once denounced and purposefully avoided the politics of personal destruction, having felt firsthand its painful consequences in 2000 in South Carolina, but who now wants to win at any cost. By ridiculing his opponent's commitment to public service, he has undermined the very reason we were drawn to McCain in the first place. By trying to steal the mantle of change from the Democrats, he demonstrates only the riskiness of his shoot-from-the-hip style. That may have worked in the Senate and on the campaign trail, but it is hardly presidential. In fact, it is frightening in the extreme and bespeaks an instability difficult to reconcile considering our complicated world and its myriad problems.

More to the point, he continues almost daily to demonstrate that instability and other judgmental and temperamental concerns, issues and complaints that originally brought a slew of challengers into the Republican primary contests. And in the most important decision of his candidacy, he cynically and irresponsibly chose the supremely unqualified Sarah Palin, cheapening the race as if it were some high school popularity contest or the latest "American Idol" competition.

Even the most ardent true-believers among us must be privately shaking in their boots contemplating a heart-beat-away Palin presidency during these difficult times. When Putin acts up, who do you want whispering in your President's ear: Joe Biden or Sarah Palin?

McCain is a man who once championed openness and fairness in government, who now wants to continue the failed policies of the current administration and who increasingly wants to make the crucial decisions of our democracy behind closed doors with the same cronies who got us into this mess in the first place. And he has shown a profound indifference to and often startling ignorance of economic affairs just as our country inches toward depression.

That threatens to make him the next Herbert Hoover if he should win. And his old strong suit, foreign policy, is slipping away too, as gaffe after gaffe displays his fundamental shortcomings. I want my President to know the difference between a Sunni and Shia. John McCain does not.

We in New Hampshire bear some responsibility, I suppose. Thinking we had the old McCain, we gave him a decisive victory in our primary that permitted him to vanquish those challengers. But he betrayed us. If you have to say you're a maverick in your ads, it's clear you're not. The real maverick turns out to be Barack Obama, who bucked his party's establishment and whose once-lonely positions have been adopted by nearly everyone including even the Bush administration. Nearly everyone, that is, except John McCain. So what happened to him?
That's what Granite State citizens have been asking the last few months. The answer is enough to turn us blue.

This article first appeared in the Manchester Union Leader.

Comments

[WritusMaximus]

This is the John McCain that always has been. Let's see. McCain voted against the minimum wage and for equal pay for women at every chance. He was for deregulation before he was against it. His idea of extending health insurance is to give money directly to the insurance companies but have the "beneficiaries" of such insurance (yeah, the famous Joe and Jane six packs!) pay taxes on it. He voted against the most recent GI bill. He wants tax cuts for the wealthy and wants to give billions to oil companies, at a time when oil companies are swimming in billions of dollars in profits.
He has always been for the corporate elite, and now plays lip service to the middle class and only because he was forced to---think McCain's Health Insurance plan for example. Biden, during the vp debate, got tired of the nonsense and had a ball destroying McCain's maverick label.

Remember, back in 2000 he was competing with Bush for the repub nomination. Now that he already has the nomination, he is back to his old self. He for the most part never changed, but quite a few folks he fooled. Don't ever accept anyone's statements/label at face value when you can verify!

[Jesster]

WritusMaximus is, sadly, correct, and I happened to be one of those hoodwinked by the socalled "Reformer" (not so much "maverick") McCain - to the extent that I actually co-founded a website supportring him back in late 1999 (against Bush, not necessarily Gore.)


But the myth of the "Maverick McCain" is just that, a myth. If, indeed, he has EVER put "country first" it is only because it happened to coincide with putting himself and his personal ambitions first. Keating 5 is not irrelevant/ancient history because it represents where McCain has always been politically - and I might add, the Democrats cannot be thrilled with resurrecting this "old" scandal, since the other (Keating) 4 were all respected Democrats...

The Keating 5 is more than relevant, especially because it is very much ON TOPIC with today's economic disasters, which is what most of us are most concerned with and effected by NOW.

[sceneandherd]

Jesster, you weren't alone. I'm a New Englander and I was a big supporter for McCain in 2000. Now, I feel like I was such a fool. Never again!

[sharonrj50]

CHECK OUT WHAT OBAMA PAYS HIS STAFF AND WHAT MCCAIN PAYS HIS STAFF

WHERE DID YOU GET THIS INFORMATION CNN OR MSNBC? THEY ARE WORKING FOR GETTING OBAMA ELECTED IF YOU CAN'T SEE THAT WELL. I WENT ON MSNBC WEB SITE AND IT HAD GOV. PALIN FACT CHECK BUT NO JOE BIDEN FACT CHECK WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE PICTURE?

[WritusMaximus]

A few folks at Morning Joe are fans of Palin. Heck, Joe pointed out today that Palin showed a high level of intelligence when she fired a one-liner at a heckler. Joe is obviously ignoring Palin's performance in them interviews and at the debate, where a person has to expand and explain, where one-liners are just that, one-liners. Let's here for more "fair and balanced"!

Hillary, watch out 'cuz Palin is a comin' for your title as the American Women's rep!

[marysandra]

I came of age in the era of Viet Nam, even 25 years later, when visiting the Viet Nam Memorial Wall, I was so overcome, I could not walk the entire length. I found the names of high school classmates, and a former teacher. I married my first husband, {unwisely} so he "wouldn't have to go to Viet Nam." Stranger things were done in those days. John McCain was one of the lucky ones, as odd as that may sound to today's youth. He came home to his family with all his limbs, his faculties and his ambition.
Too bad he didn't do more with it, especially for those less fortunate than he.

[weg203]

unfortunately right on

[Madison5]

Lying and Denying

As usual, Mr. Burns, you have made an important point with eloquence and historical precedent beyond question. Once the heir apparent to Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, John McCain realizes that at age 72 with three melanoma diagnoses this is his last chance to be president and has, as you said, caved into the lobbyists and radicals in his party he once fought against. Now the man who - even when he was a maverick - didn't know Sunni from Shia and admitted he didn't know much about economics has totally committed himself to the Karl Rove playbook and will have his surrogates, led by Ms. Pailin, saying any lie they think will stick whilst at the same time denying the economic debacle that was the result of every economic policy he has supported. Despite his heroic service Senator McCain is clearly the wrong man at the wrong time.

[Hoelder]

Why does everybody have to reassure when they mention McCain and are about to attack his position that he is a hero and his heroic act needs to be respected. I get really tired of that, really soon. Let's assume for one moment assume a German soldier was taken prisoner and walked his way from Stalingrad to a Gulag some 600 miles in Siberia, where he had to do hard labor cutting trees and where he saw his comrades die from work or torture wounds. Then he finally 12 years later is pushed on a train and handed over to a country that had changed. Or how about a Polish Jew who never saw his family again, who survived when Stalin buried most Polish Officers in the forest of Katyn mass execution and he survived the camps and the relocation for 50 years when he finally was sent to immigration in Chicago almost 80 years old. Of General Paulus 600,000 men sixth army only 6000 survived. In Stalin's death camps more then 20 Million people where worked to death or just shot. Under Hitlers' tyranny more than 6 million were slaughtered to death. When my Grandfather came home, there was nothing, nobody would think he was a hero, nobody honored his survival, because this is what McCain did: he survived. You can only draw so much herodom from that and you still have to look at what that person did with these credentials.

[FOXYLADY]

GREAT REMINDER TO THOSE WHO SUPPORT MCCAIN AND ALL THE OTHER SELF SERVING REPUBLICANS.............. AND WHAT MCCAIN DID WITH THOSE CREDENTIALS DOESN'T COME NEAR TO WHAT THE SURVIVORS OF VIETNAM AND THE GULAG AND THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS HAVE DONE WITH THEIR LIVES......THIS OLD BABE HAS MET MANY OF THESE PEOPLE THROUGHOUT MY LIFE............AND MCCAIN DOESN'T COME NEAR.....NOR DOES PALIN... NOR DO I FOR THAT MATTER...................

[bodo]

People seem to have overlooked what the word maverick actually stands for. It means a hotheaded irresponsible hazardeur and reckless gambler who takes enormous risks, a man who shoots first and thinks later. McCain was that kind of irresonsible risktaker all his life, from crashing three planes half a century ago until now when he gambles on an unqualified VP candidate who may endanger national security.

[JoDeeVa]

Some other 'unorthodox' meanings for maverick that doesn't bode well for the country, with 2 of them, one the President and one the VP:

~Unbranded, lost or ailing calves/ cattle that get culled from the herd and often, ea...well, we won't go there.
~enfant terrible..French term for a child who is terrifyingly candid by saying embarrassing things.
~loose cannon
~And, finally this infinitely more dangerous "maverick"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-65_Maverick

[Moose49]

"What happened to John McCain? What happened to the man so many of us in New Hampshire have admired and respected for so long?"

Here's what you have to do: Look at McCain over the course of his entire career, not where he was at in 2000-2002. When you do that, you realize that the so-called, self-proclaimed maverick was the anomaly, the exception to the rule. It was a snow-job designed to ingratiate himself with the media and the punditocracy. The real McCain existed before and we're seeing him again now.

[sandpiper1]

Well said Moose49...you media types bought in the maverick nonsence and promoted it. This is the real McCain you are seeing. His record speaks volumes, yet you the media didn't do your job, as usual, just jumped on the McCain mythical express...now you're all shocked.

[ERose]

How can a puppet be a maverick? I am a child of the 60's....cut my teeth on peaceful protest and grieved for my friends who were shipped off to a senselss bloody war. As a culture we did not honor the returning vets, and still haven't in my estimation. Especially in light of the dismal voting record of John McCain on veterans' needs and funding for them. This alone takes away any right he claims to trot out his POW history at will, with an intention to garner sympathy....and votes. He's not the only soldier who suffered in that war, just the most visible one. In the meantime our own country's leaders have condoned the very same sort of tortures we condemned when they were meted out to our G.I.'s at the hands of the Viet Cong.

John McCain may have pandered to the religious right by bringing in Palin.....but it seems to me there is no do-unto-others doctrine in their platform or past performances.

[SunnyDay]

Has anyone read that email going around written by the professor who ended up on Turtle Island with McCain, Cindy and their daughter? If that is indeed true then what we are seeing now is the real McCain. After all, he cheated on his injured first wife many times and openly admits it. He has admitted lying on many occasions and doesn't seem ashamed to admit it. Believe me, I even sent him money for his primary campaign before I had to admit that he's not the man to lead this country. He has no moral fiber and we desperately need someone to lead this country who has a sense of moral decency. So many things need to be undone that Bush put in place.

[USexpat]

"This is Not the John McCain New Hampshire Once Loved"

Ah, but this article is by the Ken Burns that Texans have always loved.

[Marmee]

What's humbling for me is that this is a total downer for my self-esteem. Although like most of us I have always fancied myself to be politically savvy and aware, the fact is I bought the old image of John McCain. I really bought it.

Not because I had any reason to believe it--I don't know the man from beans, never met him, never will--but because I was naive enough to swallow a carefully-crafted, media-driven image without question. I was the idiot here.

It makes me wonder what else I'm swallowing without question, and that is deeply depressing.

Once you learn about McCain's actual biography, you begin to realize that what we see now IS and always has been the real John McCain--a snotty little rich kid, the Admiral's underachieving brat driven by privilege and narcissism and some dark personal demons you wouldn't want to look at too closely.

He's a man who has always used pull and clout to get his own way, except during that 5 and a half years he just can't stop talking about (perhaps because it represents the only interlude in his whole sorry life when he really did have to dig deep and find his best self). The McCain of the 2000 campaign was an artifact--a brilliant one, as carefully crafted as once, in the old Hollywood days of images and publicists, was Rock Hudson's image as a ladies' man....

[Snickerdoodle2]

John McCain is reported to have made, in public, several highly offensive anti-Catholic remarks, so I was startled to come across a couple of old news articles describing how Cindy McCain (then Cindy Lou Hensley) was presented, along with 11 other young women, to His Eminence, Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Los Angeles, at the 16th Annual Easter Monday Ball at the Beverly Hilton. This event took place in April, 1973, and each young woman bowed before H. E., who was seated in a throne-like chair on a dais, dressed in scarlet robes. As they bowed, the Cardinal placed a gold medallion around each woman's neck, which depicted Our Lady Queen of Angels. The newspapers reporting on this event included the Pasadena Star-News and the Van Nuys News. It does seem so odd.

[livvyjk]

AHMEN! This is EXACTLY what I have been saying. I am mostly a Dem, but can fence-sit from time to time and can certainly get with the "People, Not Parties" view of elections. I was very interested in hearing what John McCain had to say during the 2000 primaries and might have been OK with him winning. (I would not have voted for him..but still...). THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW! He has sold out, and what was once a man who was in politics for the right reasons, has become a man desperate to fulfill a personal legacy. His nomination of Sarah Palin says it all. John: Remember North Carolina in the primaries? Weren't you shafted? Weren't you ROVED?

He realizes what it takes to win a Republican ticket: LIES, MANIPULATION, SMEAR TACTICS, and a strong right wing magnet in the form of your VP choice because you just can't pull that crowd in.

[Looplinker]

McCain's choice of Sarah Palin to be VP gives pause to think of who he would name to his cabinet. Probably, more of the mavericks from Alaska...a very frightening prospect considering he recently had Phil Gramm (he of "we have a nation of whiners" fame) as his economic advisor.

HIs famous or infamous quote "that the economic was fundamentally strong", a few days prior to Paulson calling for the biggest financial bail-out in the history of the country, certainly proves his statement that "I do not understand the economy".

I once had some respect for McCain. I thought he was a man of honor. However, watching his political adds have shown that he really is a petty grumpy old man who puts himself first and the country last. This is not what one would expect from a man of honor.

There used to be a joke about Reagen. "You could walk in the deepest recesses of Reagan's mind and not get your ankles wet". In the case of Sarah Palin, her mind's deepest recesses is either a vacuum or filled with hot air.

[chelliza]

It seems to be agreed upon by even those in the RNC that Phil Gramm would be his head of the treasury. Scary!

[Passenger57]

You wanna read something REALLY scary? McCain as a child holding his breath until he went unconcious - just because he didn't get his way. I think a line can be drawn through that and the way McCain's running his campaign today because Obama didn't agree on the 'town hall' format that McCain wanted.
MCCAIN - IS - DANGEROUS.

[PioneerKing]

KEN BURNS:

You are so very mistaken this is John McCain writ large.

McCain has shown his real self to folks on Capitol Hill for years and McCain's buddies in the main stream media wrote off lots of McCain's bad behavior and irratic behavior for years because they "love his biography of being a former POW."

What you have wittnessed of late is the real John McCain.

McCain of today is the same McCain who years ago found it amusing to make mysigonist ribald jokes about Chelsea Clinton's looks, her parentage and Sen. Clinton's and Janet Renos sexuality.

McCain is a mean spirited, petulant, blowhard who is one of the most petty politicians one could ever encounter. McCain has simply gotten a pass on his behavior because he is a forme r POW.

[USexpat]

Spot on. The folks in Arizona, who know him best, have been documenting the real John McCain for years. Here is an article from 1989 -

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1989-11-29/news/mccain-the-most-reprehensible-of-the-keating-five/1

"You won't let anyone forget that you were a prisoner of war. But you have played that tune too long. By now your constant reminders about your war record make you seem like a modern version of Arthur Miller's tragic failure Willy Loman."

And behind this curtain are enough articles on McCain to keep anyone busy for the next week -

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/mccain