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.
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"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."
I've been waiting for someone to say that. My uncle was a POW of the Japanese in WWII and went through some harrowing experiences. He came back to the US, got on with his life, and didn't speak of it in any detail for more than fifty years. He would never have used it to gain unfair advantage in arguments or excuse any of his failings.
What happened to him? He never was...THIS
Well stated Mr. Burns. I'm very pleased hear some input from someone who does his homework and has had vast experience reflecting on the lives of our military veterans and is a well known historian in addition. Thank you.
Excellent article. Thank you, Ken Burns. We need your voice, your honesty.
These are very troubling times - and we cannot afford such a troubled (and troubling) "leader" as MsCain.
I admired McCain in those other years too. But I think that he wants to be president so badly he can't help himself from compromising some of his principles. Sadly for him, his time was in 2000. That was supposed to be his election, but the dreaded GWB stole it from him with 'dirty tricks' campaigning. Now it's too late and the USA has moved on from him. He can't see it, but it's true.
I also once supported McCain as I thought he was an honorable man who had been on the receiving end of some very dirty tricks by Rove & Co.
No longer can I support this man who has sadly shown a complete lack of character and absence of honor. He really sold his soul for a chance to become POTUS. Sad that he has to live with this.
He will not be POTUS unless people decide that voting for a black man is far worse than being homeless or jobless. We have to work hard to make sure that the stupid and ignorant don't outnumber those of us who care passionately about the future of our country.
Republicans refuse to extend unemployment benefits:
http://www
There's your republican party, folks. The party of Wall Street and the banks, not of Main Street.
These comments continue to keep my hopes alive.If conservative New Hampshire can see the truth, this country might be saved, after all.
I am a democrat, but I used to think McCain was a good guy even though he was republican. I used to think I could possibly vote for him. He was a moderate and seemed like a fair guy. What on earth has happened to him? Is it his age? Is it his last chance to be president and he wants it so badly that he is possessed? What was he thinking when he chose Palin? Was he thinking at all? This is not the same McCain. He has become nasty and although he's always been prone to temper tantrums, it seems there is one always brewing just beneath the surface. He has no economic knowledge and really doesn't seem to focus on anything other than war. He is totally out of touch with middle America, in fact, he was probably never in touch. He made a huge mistake when he chose Palin, he wrote his own obituary by doing so. I don't know why the red states are refusing to see him and Palin for what they really are...out of touch, dangerous, angry people with no knowledge how to run this country and don't seem to be surrounded by people that know anything either. This is a doomed ticket.
"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 was a myth in the first place, Mr. Burns.
A very vague myth at that. Does anyone recall anything he said in 2000?
Ken Burns' words speak for how I feel as a fellow NH resident and one who voted for McCain in 2000 . We messed up by enabling his victory. Sorry nation. At least Obama is leading the NH polls so I hope we make it up to you.
I used to like McCain and thought I might vote for him at one point but I am glad I never did. He has turned into the worst of the republican party... Palin is just a reckless choice and I have been saying the same thing that they are treating his election as if it were american idol or some reality TV show where you just need to be popular to win...
I am very distressed by the thought of either McCain or Palin being in power. I feel as if we have a choice between moving in a healthy direction with Obama/Biden or putting the nail in the coffin of our democracy with McCain/Palin and making a complete joke of our country if it can survive them at all.... That's what the choice feels like to me....
I lived in NH and those unfamiliar with its politics should listen to Burns since he obviously understands its mentality. In my years in NH 40yrs ago, it was reeling from mill closings; unemployment was high but I never heard anyone complain about it. These folks are independent. I never felt the people were Republicans merely libertarian. I found it odd that locals didn't know what to make of liberals and failed to recognize that libertarians have more in common with liberals then conservatives but then by 1970, liberals lost their way as conservatives have lost theirs today.
It's reasonable the old McCain was popular in NH but honestly, McCain was never a maverick. On a selected issues he crossed the aisle to the ire of his party's wingnuts but for 26 years the man was a reliable Republican vote, which suggests McCain's maverick reputation was oversold by a media that found the man likable. Burns is obviously intelligent and well informed; that being the case, I'd like him to revisit McCain's record and then argue the man is truly a maverick. At the risk of sounding partisan, McCain is more opportunist than maverick. He selected maverick issues carefully so as to garner the greatest personal exposure while causing the least damage to his party status. Let Burns prove me wrong by developing a documentary on McCain. I suspect he might not like the man he discovers.
I liked McCain in 2000, too. But reading more about him now (even about the positions that supposedly "he regretted" after he lost--Liberty University, the confederate flag, etc.--I wonder if it was really just good PR, even then.
People should read "The Real McCain" and, especially, "Free Ride", about the press's love affair with him--to the point of covering up and covering over all the negatives going far, far back, even past the Keating 5 days.
Bad temper. Impulsiveness. Poor Judgment. Dishonesty. Opportunism that does or says "anything to win".
I think these are all long-time problems for McCain, not new ones. We just didn't know.
WOW! . . This is a powerful article, beautifully and clearly pointing out facts about a
declining person. . How come the press isn't DEMANDING a thorough, non-controlled
look at his medical records?
Obviously, there is something really wrong when he needs cue cards to say Hello.
And it has just about come to that. . . how long can the GOP keep faking us out?
He has recently started paying $5000. for his makeup sessions, is that because there is
something wrong with his face or skin? - - We need medical records. - - NOW!
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