Posted on 07/13/2007 1:27:45 PM PDT by hardback
Watching the mass defections from the McCain camp, I couldn’t help but think of King Lear. As the play (Shakespeare’s darkest) progresses, Lear consistently loses half of his army (or “train”) -- it dwindles from 100 to 50 to 25 on down to nothing. The loss mirrors his own descent from powerful king to senility and death.
In a similar way, the McCain mutiny foreshadows his campaign’s own demise. While I’m not exactly heart-broken, I can’t help but feel sorry for him. That’s because his fall -- unlike the other candidates’ eventual fall -- seems to take on more tragic dimensions. Of the entire field, he alone strikes me as worthy of being a Shakespearian character.
First, a word on what I mean by “Shakespearian.” Obviously, it can mean a million different things. To me though, Shakespearian refers to the intersection of the most basic human emotions with the highest-possible realms of politics and power. In other words, it’s a look at how a powerful individual’s (e.g., a king, prince, queen, etc.) raw primal emotions can have world-historical effects. Lust can lead to war; jealousy to loss of power. And so on.
In this sense, the Clinton impeachment was almost as pure Shakespeare as you can get. The President indulged in a basic sexual desire and, as a result, he was almost removed from office. It’s the classic example of a micro-emotion playing out on a grand historical scale with wide-ranging consequences.
McCain is not so perfectly Shakespearian, but he still makes for some interesting narrative. In particular, what’s interesting is the amount and type of humiliation he was willing to endure to be President.
Here’s a man whose daughter – daughter – was viciously slandered by the GOP political machine in South Carolina, which included the social conservative hierarchy. Here’s a man who endured unspeakable torture. Here’s a man who, for better or worse, came to prominence through high-profile dissents from party orthodoxy. And in the past three years, he’s abandoned it all.
On the first point, as a relatively new parent, I find his willingness to embrace the social conservative powers-that-be the most interesting. It’s obviously difficult to explain the sense of loyalty and devotion parents have to their child, but it’s a unique bond, unlike any other I’ve experienced. The amount of sheer rage that McCain (who is already predisposed to rage) must feel about those coordinated attacks on his daughter is difficult to comprehend. It’s a guess obviously, but not an unreasonable one -- parents feel free to jump in here.
But fast forward a few years, and we see McCain kissing up to the very people who slandered his daughter. He speaks at their commencements. He publicly hugs the man whose campaign personally and viciously attacked him and his family. It’s utter humiliation.
Same deal with torture. It's not possible for me to know what McCain endured in Vietnam, and I won't pretend to. I’ll only guess that it left a tremendous impact on him, and that he must privately detests torture. Fast forward to 2006 though and we see him betray that conviction for political expediency. Despite some initial high-profile dissent, McCain ultimately supported what everyone knew was an official sanction of state torture. Because the NRO/Reynolds/Falwell wing of the party is what it is, he decided he had to support torture in order to be president. And on this, he was right.
In short, you have a man forced to swallow his pride, to repress deeply-felt emotions, and to essentially repudiate his entire being to be President.
But all that said, I have some sympathy for him. After all, it’s likely that these are exactly the types of tradeoffs that winning the presidency requires. You could easily imagine him (or any one of us) saying, “The presidency is more important on orders of magnitude than anything else. I could do so much good if I win. I have to swallow my personal issues for the greater good.” It’s not an unreasonable position at all. Every presidential candidate has probably had similar thoughts.
But here’s the catch – to be vindicated, you have to win. In the eyes of the public (including historians and pundits), victory alone decides whether you compromised too much, or whether you did what was necessary to win. For instance, if Kerry had won, his decision to vote for the war in 2002 would have been hailed as a necessary condition of his victory, rather than a calculated betrayal of his principles. If Gore had won in 2000, his decision to run away from Clinton would have been hailed as the key to his success. It’s not so much that winners write history, but that winning dictates how history will remember you.
That’s what makes running for president such a high-stakes gamble. To gain it all, you risk it all. McCain’s soul-selling will be remembered (forever) in one of two very different ways. On the one hand, it could be remembered as the shrewd political calculation that won him the nomination and then the presidency. More likely, it will be remembered as pathetic hypocrisy that will accompany his permanent, eternal humiliation. He will soon go from media darling to “pathetic loser.” Dukakis: Welcome to the club.
But many a candidate has sold out some principles. What makes McCain so interesting is the type of principles he chose to abandon (e.g., loyalty to family). He must live with the shame of having turned his back on all that he was (and even his own family) in a futile quest to win the support of those who passionately disliked him. History will damn him as a loser -- forever -- and a pathetic one at that. It shouldn’t, but it will. Gore’s miraculous revival notwithstanding, America exiles its losers.
But that’s the cost. Running for president isn’t for the weak at heart. It’s a high-stakes bet. For a chance at political greatness and immortality, you risk a great deal. McCain did just that, but it looks like he lost.
It wasn’t a fall...the dimwit liberal media do not understand that he was NEVER a “GOP” leader of the pack.
Pride goeth before a fall, and McCain’s pride certainly did him in. Pride in that he thought he could take up every position in opposition to the GOP base and yet still get the GOP nomination. He should change parties and run in the primaries as a Democrat - he’d have a better shot!
McCain has been playing prima donna to the media for years while he kicked his own party in the teeth. After pursuing his own selfish interests for an entire lifetime, what else does he expect?
John McCain believed his press clippings from the 2000 election.
He never was a conservative Republican and thus he never would be the G.O.P. standard bearer.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your service now go home senator.
“his fall — unlike the other candidates’ eventual fall — seems to take on more tragic dimensions.”
Nonsense. This man was sleeze since his sellout to Keating.
Odd that there is no mention of the shamnesty sellout.
What was said about McCain’s daughter? Never heard about that.
Reads like a liberal lament for their hero, the “maverick”.
Is this a lib site? The comments sure read like it is.
Could of stopped at this: McCain’s soul-selling will be remembered (forever).....and that would have been the whole story! McCain & Dukakis, they deserve each other.
I never heard of his daughter, either. His wife, whom he dumped his first wife to marry, is a beer baron heiress. She was being investigated by the DEA for stealing drugs from the company she worked for, but McCain made some kind of deal with clinton, who called them off. With that kind of background, it wouldn’t be surprising if the daughter had problems.
Birnham Wood hath come to Dunsinane.
TV Host: Senator McCain, we are coming up on the end of the hour, in order to schedule you for next week we need some sort of Anti-Republican or even better an Anti-Bush comment for our audience that will set the stage for next week’s show.
Cicero, the Arizona paper did a series on it. She did steal the drugs from the charity she ran. She also had a doctor who worked for the charity write narcotic prescriptions for her using the names of other employees. The doctor lost his license. Cindy got a sweet deal--one of those "diversion" programs instead of a long prison term that a lot of people would have received for such crimes.
I think Cindy got that sweet deal because McCain agreed to do some favors for bill clinton in return. I didn’t read everything on it, but I saw several articles posted here at the time.
If you shoot yourself in the foot often enough, infection will set in.
I think (in their minds) it is tragic because they REALLY thought he was popular and that was A-OK with them because he wasn’t conservative to the core...so they could “live” with this republican....
But, I must say I am VERY pleased with the speech he gave in the Senate ripping the NYT.
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