The Untouchable Hero McCain

Anyone who really believes the Vietnam War ended in 1975 is, well, dinky-dao (Americanized Vietnamese for "crazy"). That misbegotten conflict, a war we never should have fought and the only war we ever "lost", cost us the respect of much of the world, polluted U.S. policy, spurred a national identity crisis and scarred the American psyche. Vietnam remains unfinished business.

33 years later, that unfinished business is the elephant in the room. It's still poisoning the well of American politics.

The press and the public, the vast majority of whom never served in any war, are seized with a belated paroxysm of Mass Mea Culpa. We're beating our chests, heaping ash on our heads, wallowing in collective guilt; because we failed miserably, decades ago, to "support our troops". We sent them off to an endless war of questionable origin and purpose, then treated them like shit when they came home. We called them war criminals. Baby killers. Neither they nor their families were offered counseling of any kind to ease the difficult transition back into civilian life.

We had not yet learned to hate the war -- not the warrior. Bad government, not a bad military, condemned 2,709,918 Americans to the misery of Vietnam. Bad government, not a bad military, cost us 58,226 American lives, 61% of them under the age of 21.

33 years later, having served in that war and having survived a nightmarish stint in the Hanoi Hilton make John McCain -- no matter what he says or does -- untouchable. He's become America's sacred cow. He's the war hero du jour and, with the tacit approval of a bedazzled press, his honorable war record inoculates him against responsibility for dishonorable actions. Criticism smacks of anti-Americanism; we've got to be damned careful what we say and how we say it when referencing any problems we might have with John McCain's politics.

Or his nasty temper, which includes foul language directed, in public, at his own wife. Another candidate, say, Barack Obama, would have been pilloried by press and public alike for calling his wife a trollop and the C-word (which does not bear repeating). What man of moral character would say such a thing? Obama's political career would have been blighted. Beyond repair.

How about what appears to be McCain's shaky grasp of the difference between Shia and Sunni; between Iraqi insurgents who want us out of their country and Al Qaeda?

Or his deep concern about punitive Russian policy directed toward Czechoslovakia -- when there has been no Czechoslovakia since 1993?

Or his equally deep concern about the "serious problem" our military faces "along the Iraq/Pakistan border" -- when the two nations share not one inch of adjoining territory?

Or his insisting, despite the facts, that Bush's surge predated the Anbar Awakening?.

Mistakes like these have crippled more than one presidential hopeful's campaign. Gerald Ford's 1976 foreign policy gaffe, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe...", was "The Blooper Heard 'Round the World" (Time, October 18, 1976). Echoing worldwide media response, Time said Ford's blooper was an amazing gaffe, "...Especially for one who is running partly on a campaign theme of experience in foreign policy..."

Unlike Ford, John McCain has gotten an "Aw, shucks! We all know that's not what he really meant..." media pass. We can't call a string of foreign policy bloopers serious reason for re-examining a candidacy. Go there and we're attacking a war hero who suffered for his country; we are waging a media campaign without honor.

Let's be clear: There is no doubt Senator McCain's service to his country was both honorable and admirable. There is no doubt he suffered terribly during five and a half years as a POW. No one -- not Senator Barack Obama, not General Wesley Clark, not any other Democratic surrogate -- has questioned the value of McCain's service, his patriotism or his honor during wartime. Everyone conceded, long ago, that John McCain is a hero.

Going to Vietnam made McCain no more heroic than over two million other Americans. By enlistment or by the draft, a member of the military knows that going to war is a matter of duty, not heroism.

Getting shot down while flying a mission is not an act of heroism. It is a tragic consequence of war. Being captured by the enemy is not an act of heroism. It's rotten luck. Time spent as a POW is not an act of heroism; it is certainly time spent in hell, against your will. Surviving it, living by the military Code of Conduct, is not so easy to do. But McCain and over 1,200 other men did it. According to the Code, a POW is to refuse "parole or special favors". McCain was offered his freedom because his father was Navy brass. He declined. He was doing his duty. That was undeniably the tough choice; it undeniably epitomizes honorable military conduct.

Clearly, John McCain had the courage and the determination to do his duty, to survive, and to do it with honor.

Honor is the cornerstone of the McCain campaign. Honor is his brand, his mantra. Honor.

But there is precious little honor in John McCain's strategy to win the White House. His attacks, which include pronouncements like Barack Obama "would rather lose the war than lose the election", his intimation that Obama does not support American troops, are dishonest and are deliberately crafted to brand the Democratic candidate "unpatriotic". The message? Unlike the honorable Vietnam war hero, Barack Obama is unAmerican. He is a coward and a danger to American safety, democracy and values. McCain knows better. Where is the honor in this?

Given the popularity Senator Obama enjoys both here and (especially) abroad, the honorable John McCain approved the Britney/Paris/Obama-as-celebrity video. If he can't compete with the articulate, visionary message or the likeable messenger on equal terms, he'll make something cheap, something suggestive of it. Confronted with the sleazy nature of the ad, McCain dubbed it "campaign humor". It's a joke. He's proud of it and there's more to come. Where's the honor?

And there's "The One". An Obama-as-phony-Moses piece of work. This one, which hints at a messianic complex, hints at the advent of the anti-Christ, hints at mass mania, is an insult to God, to the church, to people of faith, to every American citizen who believes four more years of the Bush Doctrine is a bad idea. This McCain-approved video says a great deal about his contempt for all of us.

There is no honor in this kind of campaign. There is no honor left in the man who would countenance it. There is certainly nothing heroic about smear- and fear-tactics.

The Vietnam War is over. It's time for John McCain to do the honorable thing in 2008. It's time he acts the hero. It's time he stops resting on the laurels of his Vietnam saga and relying on the collective guilt of a nation to shield him from his gaffes, his flaws, his nose-dive into the deep end of the politics-as-usual cesspool. It's John McCain's turn to be "The One". The One courageous enough to pull his own campaign out of the gutter and run for the presidency on nothing more -- or less -- than his own vision, his own proposed policies for the country's future.

It's time for John McCain to be The One. The One who has some honor left.

Comments

[Wilburrr]

If McCain is going to use his POW status to leverage his campaign then his entire military career should be open for investigation. It is not. Why is it not open? What were his actions, if any, regarding the fire on board the USS Forestall on July 29, 1967? If he had any part in starting that fire, if his immediate transfer to the USS Oriskany had anything to do with his culpability (is it true that no one else was transferred?), and if he used his family position to save his own career then he has no business flaunting his POW status.

[KiwisCanFly]

I have read McCain was in actual combat (over enemy territory) 20 hours in total. He received 28 medals, none related to combat duty. They were for after he was shot down.
He was near last in his graduating class of 795 graduates in 1958. In the years 1958 to 1967 he lost 5 navy aircraft.
That seems a lot for only 20 hrs combat duty so I assume some were during his training.
I assume he wasn’t kicked out for incompetence becos he was protected by his Admiral father.

“Untested and untried” there is certainly an argument to be made on whether McCain’s military record reflects incompetence or bad luck.
I am certainly not denigrating McCain’s POW status.
Surely one can separate and distinguish between his active service and that of his POW imprisonment.

Experience is not irrelevant however better judgment will always beat out experience. McCain who said, that we’d be greeted as liberators in Iraq and that it would be an easy engagement with the Iraqi, was absolutely wrong. He has changed his mind now, but it’s too late.

[ButterflyWeed]

As a 'tail-end' Baby Boomer, I begrudge McCain's ability to enjoy his wife's fortune, Senatorial taxpayer-provided benefits for life, while drawing full social security pension and earned military benefits. Why should he care if Social Security collapses when I'm fifty-nine? Unable to keep a finger on who paid the property taxes on seven homes, will he ever understand the relevancy of the price of gas?

It's McCain's 'I got mine' Ferragamo shoes demeanor that's totally out of touch with the state of average America today. The Maverick/War Hero personna is maintained to fool just enough of the non-investor class on election day.

[standard]

John McCain was--and remains--a casualty of war. That message won't be easy to convey.

The MSM and their public usually conflate being a casualty and being a hero. On 9/11 there were authentic heroes, principal among them the firefighters and police officers who rushed into the towers in New York to rescue others--some were lost and some survived--and the civilians who forced the fourth plane down in Pennsylvania. Most who perished that day were casualties of a needless tragedy, no less worthy of our respect and anguish, but not heroic. A few were mere children.

Likewise, not everyone who served in the military during the Vietnam Era was a hero. Many (I, for one) never set foot in a combat zone, let alone saw combat. John McCain, no less than John Kerry, undoubtedly deserves his medals, but McCain was a casualty as well as a hero. His temper and roughness today may have grown out of that experience. That might explain his behavior, but it neither excuses it nor qualifies him to serve as the primary leader of the free world in an age as volatile as ours.

[TishiJo]

Excellent commentary! McCain's ads claiming Obama wil raise taxes and is responsible for the price of gasoline mislead and distract the American people from McCain's ties to big oil. Since McCain declared his support of offshore drilling, he has received $1.2 million in oil industry contributions. In fact, Obama will end tax credits for the rich. McCain has run a dishonest, dishonorable campaign in consistent attempts to swiftboat Obama.

[kauffmanr]

I feel sorry for Sen McCain actually. He had to abandon himself, the maverick, to find enough support in his party to win the primary. Now he has no idea who or what he should be in the general election. It seems like the poor guy has become what he hates most: a Rovian mouthpiece. yuck.

[jcscown]

If you search the web, there is a lot about the integrity of our Senator in Arizona. Lots about his personal life.....is that stuff true?

[DeanieMills]

Linda, you've outdone yourself, m'girl. This post is absolutely perfect.

One of the first forwards I got from my right-wing friends was a diatribe about how McCain never mentions his own heroism and the liberal media will downplay it. Hogwash. He's been running as a war hero ever since he dumped his faithful wife who'd been disfigured in a car accident during his POW time, left her and his three kids, and made off with a beautiful multimillionaire heiress half his age who then funded his first run for congress a few months later.

John Kerry was a war hero who saved at least one man's life, and look what the Republicans and the media did to him. I will never, ever forget their "Purple Heart Band-Aids" during the Rep convention of '04. Shame, shame on them.

And yet McCain has been untouchable. I'm seeing a few cracks in the veneer, and I appreciate your courage in saying it. Your readers should know your husband is a decorated Vietnam war hero and fully supported this post.

[zrants]

Why has the media not bothered to look into McCain’s family life history? The Arizona press is full of details on how the Viet Vet hero, whose primary military experience was spent holed up in a Cong Prison, divorced his injured wife and left his three children to marry the daughter of one of the richest men in Arizona. I don’t claim to know the facts, but there are too many juicy stories for the press to ignore about his father-in-law’s ties to crime, and his own prison experience. Seems spending time in jail is a family trait.

[jefflz]

This is an excellent and accurate portrayal of McCain the pseudo-Maverick. It is true that Obama has been given an enormous amount of press coverage but much of is cool or negative - with constant theme - Why hasn't Obama connected? It is refreshing to read an analysis of McCain's pathetic and dirty Rovian campaign and McCain's flagrant flaws as a candidate- he has been treated with a very light and forgiving hand by the major media - the doctored Couric CBS interview being a prime example. Nevertheless, Obama cannot "turn the other cheek" when slammed with Wllie Horton-SwiftBoat -style attacks. His campaign must strike back quickly and with force. They have not done so and even Paris Hilton seems to know this as evidenced by her hilarious video (YouTube) repsonse to the McCain combined slurs of her and Obama ..

[Javalation]

Did you see that McCain said that he would tap former US Comptroller David Walker to help balance the federal budget? What would McCain do if Walker suggested that raising taxes are necessary as part of the solution? Would he wear his nothing is off the table hat, or his no higher taxes one? Would he gut Social Security, Medicare, or what?

[DoTheMath]

Well done, Linda.

[nova1507]

Go McCain

[sand cat]

Go where?