Be Afraid of President McCain

The John McCain presidency effectively began on January 10, 2007, when George W. Bush announced the deployment of five more combat brigades to Iraq. This escalation of an unpopular war ran counter to the advice of Bush’s senior military leadership, ignored the recommendations made by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, and sidestepped the objections of the Iraqi government it was ostensibly intended to assist. But the plan was nearly identical to what the Republican senior senator from Arizona, nearly alone among his Capitol Hill colleagues, had been advocating for months: boost troop levels by at least 20,000, give coalition forces the authority to impose security in every corner of Baghdad, and increase the size of America’s overburdened standing military by around 100,000 during the next five years.

By enthusiastically endorsing McCain’s approach, the lame duck president all but finished the job of anointing the senator his political successor.

The significance of the McCain Plan transcended horse-race politics. It was a microcosm of the Arizona senator’s largely unexamined philosophy about the proper role of the U.S. government. Like almost every past McCain crusade, from fining Big Tobacco to drug-testing athletes to restricting political speech in the name of campaign finance reform, the surge involved an increase in the power of the federal government, particularly in the executive branch.

McCain’s dazzling résumé—war hero, campaign finance Quixote, chauffeur of the Straight Talk Express, reassuring National Uncle—tends to distract people from his philosophy of government

Like Kristol and Brooks, McCain regards Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln as political idols; like them, he never hesitates in asserting that government power should be used to rekindle American (and Republican) pride in government. Unlike most neoconservative intellectuals, however, McCain is intimately familiar with the bluntest edge of state-sponsored force. A McCain presidency would put legislative flesh on David Brooks’ fuzzy pre-9/11 notions of “grand aspiration,” deploying a virtuous federal bureaucracy to purify unclean private transactions from the boardroom to the bedroom. And it would prosecute the nation’s post-9/11 wars with a militaristic zeal this country hasn’t seen in generations.

To say John McCain comes from a military family is a little like pointing out that Prince Charles is a scion of the upper class. Born in 1936, McCain is the Navy captain son of a four-star admiral who was the son of another four-star admiral, all named John Sidney McCain. And that just scratches the surface.

John McCain and his ancestors have served in every major U.S. war from the Revolution to Vietnam, and the line won’t stop there: 20-year-old John Sidney McCain IV (you can call him Jack) is learning the family trade at the Naval Academy, and 18-year-old Jimmy is in the Marines, waiting to deploy to Iraq.

The senator, his father, and his grandfather all took as a given that the U.S. Navy should control the world’s shipping lanes, guarantee the political stability of far-flung continents, and use overwhelming force at the hint of a threat to national interests. When John Sidney McCain III was growing up, every male around the dinner table could cite the exploits of British Admiral Lord Nelson, recite verse from Rudyard Kipling, and sing ribald songs about drunken misbehavior in ports of call. It’s the character trait reflected by that last fact, more than any highfalutin’ stirrings of National Greatness, that initially gave young John the fighting will to survive five years of brutal captivity during the Vietnam War.

Reading McCain’s four best-selling books is a revelatory experience. Not since Teddy Roosevelt has a leading presidential contender committed so many words to print about his philosophies of life and governance before seeking the Oval Office. All of McCain’s charming strengths and alarming foibles are there, hiding in plain sight, often unintentionally.

If you’re beginning to detect a rigid sense of citizenship and a skeptical attitude toward individual choice, you are beginning to understand what kind of president John McCain actually would make, in contrast with the straight-talking maverick that journalists love to quote but rarely examine in depth. For years McCain has warned that a draft will be necessary if we don’t boost military pay, and he has long agitated for mandatory national service. “Those who claim their liberty but not their duty to the civilization that ensures it live a half-life, indulging their self-interest at the cost of their self-respect,” he wrote in The Washington Monthly in 2001. “Sacrifice for a cause greater than self-interest, however, and you invest your life with the eminence of that cause. Americans did not fight and win World War II as discrete individuals.”

McCain’s attitude toward individuals who choose paths he deems inappropriate is somewhere between inflexible and hostile. Nowhere is that more evident than when he writes about his hero Teddy Roosevelt

“In the Roosevelt code, the authentic meaning of freedom gave equal respect to self-interest and common purpose, to rights and duties,” McCain writes. “And it absolutely required that every loyal citizen take risks for the country’s sake.…His insistence that every citizen owed primary allegiance to American ideals, and to the symbols, habits, and consciousness of American citizenship, was as right then as it is now.” McCain, always disarmingly transparent in projecting his own ambitions onto the objects of his hagiography, describes Roosevelt as an “Eastern swell” who traveled West and fought wars to become “a man of the people.”

“A world where our ideals had a realistic chance of becoming a universal creed was our principal object in the last century,” he wrote in Worth the Fighting For. “In the process, we became inextricably involved in the destiny of other nations. That is not a cause for concern. It is a cause for hope.”

Regarding the U.S. president’s war-related prerogatives, McCain has a nearly unbroken record of deferring to them, from the moment he volunteered to testify against The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case (even though his only expertise was in being a prisoner of war) to his rollover when Bush insisted that his ballyhooed anti-torture bill deny habeas corpus rights to War on Terror detainees and give the White House authority “to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions.” McCain once wrote that Teddy Roosevelt “invented the modern presidency by liberally interpreting the constitutional authority of the office to redress the imbalance of power between the executive and legislative branches that had tilted decisively toward Congress.” This is the kind of president John McCain is aching to be.

That it never occurred to McCain why a libertarian Westerner might keep a “national greatness” conservative and D.C.-bred carpetbagger at arm’s length is both touching and deeply worrisome. Does he not understand that there are at least some people in American life who take liberty as seriously as McCain takes his notions of national duty? Judging by a comment he made recently on the Don Imus radio show, the answer seems to be no. Defending campaign finance reform, McCain said, “I would rather have a clean government than one…where ‘First Amendment rights’ are being respected that has become corrupt. If I had my choice I’d rather have a clean government.”

If only Duncan Hunter had more personality appeal than your average warthog...

So you think Giuliani will go the distance... until the primaries, that is? Maybe they'll allow his fantasy to continue until the convention, even, and send him a plane ticket? (valueJet, cargo section, seat #Lox cannister)

I like him,FWIW.

Guess I picked the wrong week to try and quit sniffing glue.... where's that edit feature...

Now I wanna sniff some glue
now I wanna have somethin to do
All the kids wanna sniff some glue
all the kids want somethin to do

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8...

--The Ramones

Maybe. I was thinking Edwards has the better chance in the long run. And it is a long run at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if the Dems nominate someone the press hasn't even considered yet. Just as I really hope the Republicans do. My current favorite is Duncan Hunter. I like Tancredo too and if Newt got in then Katie bar the door. I would have to do some hard study and gut checking between those three. I think any of those three could beat anyone the Dems could put up IF they ran a strong campaign.

to batvette:

"Keep in mind our dilemma after 9/11 was having to defend the Saudi Royals from overthrow or invasion to retain dollar hegemony and Persian Gulf stability, but not be on Saudi soil to do so...."

Why do you keep spouting your leftist "retain dollar hegemony" claptrap ignorance. Go get an economic education and quit using leftist rants as your sources!!!!!

"I think a major factor is keeping Russia,France and China's paws off Iraq's oil,as much as ensuring we have first dibs purchasing it. (we still hold higher moral ground, they were set to rearm Saddam with us left to clean up the mess)"

We have not and we will not dictate Iraqi oil policy to them. We have not taken any Iraqi oil for ourselves at discount. We have not set the prices for the Iraqi oil ministry. There are no agreements between us and the new Iraqi government demanding any cancellation of any old oil agreements (Totalfina) with anyone, nor are there any demands for US preference on new agreements. Do you really think that this administration is deaf, dumb and blind to the leftist-media myth that we went to war to personally get our hands on Iraqi oil. It is all based on ignorance. Why do you perpetuate it?

I can only arrive at the conclusion you are not randomly responding to me in the course of your topical posting, but instead have decided to follow all my posts with some bizarre fixation.
Go find yourself another hobby, I don't "do" stalkers. Since this IS the internet and I'm hardly new at this (thus I know this is not likely the end of it) let me just express my experienced prediction:
Every time I post I will post on the topical issue. You will post on me. This puts you at a disadvantage, and will often leave you trying to best me in debating an issue you have little interest in.
I only debate issues I care to research and will have little difficulty dispatching your emotionally crippled replies.
However in the end, we will both surely appear like a pair of immature imbeciles to everyone witnessing the ugly spectacle, and the board will be the only thing to really suffer.
Thus, have it your way, follow me around like a little shadow or be mature and walk away- just realize that by you following me around and me not caring who or what you are, I already am one up on the "ownage" score. Ciao, baby.

"I only debate issues I care to research and will have little difficulty dispatching your emotionally crippled replies."

Your so-called "research", as much as you have been willing to identify it, amounts to leftist drivel.

I'll do you one better if you think I'm a minion of the left.

Wander into any of the news item threads over at "newshounds: we watch Fox so you won't have to", particularly if the subject is Iraq or the war on terrorism, and post a reply or two in my name. It's easy, just type it in as you post- I'll give you a link if you like.

Watch the reception they give you, and I haven't been there in a month.

Or don't. Doesn't matter to me, I've been at this for years, I don't pretend to be king of any hill nor friend to everyone.

Without even looking, I can imagine that the other poster's biggest complaint is not that they disagree with you, or with any particular point, but probably just wonder: "What in the %^^%$ is that batvette saying."

Make up your mind, will you? Your repeated criticism of me was leftist talking points, which is silly- not lack of a cohesive point. I pride myself for nearly five years of finding little pockets of the internet where the flaming liberals of America are destroying the fabric of my country promoting their lies as truth, and presenting facts whether they like them or not. Newshounds is a notorious leftist stomping ground, they banned me from their inner forums and stickied a thread about me when I infuriated them standing my ground exposing Joe Wilson's lies.
Maybe straying from the comfort of FR would do you some good,you know your stuff, you would do a greater service to your beliefs if you were surrounded by the enemy, rather than yes men. That's why you don't see me much here, and it seems to me you were so hungry for a fight you mistakenly assumed I was a Dummycrab. The enemy is out there, there are millions of wannabe Rosie O'Donnells behind their monitors hating away. Newshounds is a great place to start.

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