Sen. John McCain used to be eager to speak with the press. (WDCpix)
Maverick McCain Turns Mean
In This Presidential Contest, There's Little Left of the Charming McCain of 2000
By Sridhar Pappu
07/29/2008
| 22 Comments
Sen. John McCain, American war hero and admired political maverick, as well as presumed Republican nominee for president, had a message for Elisabeth Bumiller, the venerated New York Times reporter, along with the rest of the media assigned to travel with him the week of July 20.
"What do you want, you little jerks?" McCain said to Bumiller and those behind her, as the press surged forward on the "Straight Talk" Boeing 737 on July 21.
No one ever accused the Arizona senator of not being blunt. But he had come a long way from the media-friendly, boyishly charming, brazenly honest, free-wheeling McCain that so many in the media had come to love during the 2000 Republican primary. That man was now gone. Vanished.
Over the past few years McCain had done what was expected of a GOP favorite son. He courted the conservative base of the Republican Party, embracing the evangelical wing while inching closer and closer to President George W. Bush. Moreover, his jabs have stopped being quite so friendly. He'd become curt, even rude. Those images of McCain chatting freely and easily with reporters seemed the narrative of an entirely different person.
Illustration by: Matt Mahurin
"When he ran before he was the maverick running away from the establishment, and now he's running towards it," said Republican campaign consultant Ed Rollins, the national campaign director for Ronald Reagan's 1984 victory, and more recently the national campaign chairman for Mike Huckabee's Republican primary run. "He was jovial and fun and now he comes across as a grumpy old man."
This seemed especially true at that moment last week. It was early on the evening of July 21, on a tarmac in Buffalo. For a good chunk of that afternoon, those journalists not assigned to cover McCain's fund-raising efforts in this forsaken city had been cooling their heels in a hotel ballroom. Then word came across the Internet, from the prince of darkness himself, Robert Novak, who reported that campaign sources had said McCain was ready to announce his vice presidential pick.
McCain's comment to Bumiller and the assembled media right behind her revealed the man transformed. It seemed to sum up his new persona. Within a day, Novak admitted he'd been used by the campaign, spun around like a whirligig, and now thought no announcement was coming.
But that didn't matter for us in the living moment, as we tried to get some statement, any statement, about the report from Mr. Straight Talk himself. Leaving us with what can only be described as a mischievous grin, McCain settled into his seat, letting his senior adviser and alter-ego, Mark Salter, do the non-denial denials for the rest of the flight from Buffalo to Manchester, N.H. It was, in many ways, an Anakin Skywalker moment for McCain. Whatever good, decent qualities he'd brought to the 2000 race had been wiped away, eclipsed by a new figure we'll call Darth McCain.
It's hard to believe that McCain was championed in 2000 as the man who could bring balance to the Republican Party, not plunge it into further darkness. He had entered the 2008 Republican race as its front-runner, as the man who stood up to George W. Bush and the party's more extreme elements. In the 2000 campaign, McCain had repudiated Bush's visit to Bob Jones University in South Carolina and called out the late Jerry Falwell as one of the "agents of intolerance." He had apologized for not taking a firm stand against the Confederate flag flying high above the South Carolina capitol dome and continued to press for bi-partisan efforts like comprehensive immigration reform, including some path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.
But most of that was before McCain's apparent slide into the dark side. It's unclear whether this aspect has always been present in McCain, or whether he developed it as he saw his own moral and intellectual beliefs trampled by Bush and Karl Rove.
One could argue that this transformation began in 2004, when he said nothing as the agents of the Republican Party tore down the war record of McCain's friend and fellow Vietnam hero, Sen. John Kerry, to smoldering rubble. Or perhaps it began when he agreed to give the commencement talk at Falwell's Liberty University in 2006. During the course of the Bush administration, McCain drew ever closer to the unpopular president, despite his early criticism of how the war was planned and his tax cuts in time of war. Now McCain seems hand-in-glove with Bush on the troop surge in Iraq and the need to retain Bush's tax cuts. In fact, McCain's tax plan does the president one better. If he were to win, McCain perhaps reasoned, he would do so in the fashion of his once rival. He would fashion himself into the GOP favorite, and was willing to pay the price.
There had been one last bright moment, that I saw first-hand. This was in July 2007, after McCain had fired most of his national staff and his campaign was struggling to survive. To resuscitate not only his presidential ambitions but himself, he'd come back to the place where he'd found political redemption -- New Hampshire. It was there where he defeated Rove and Bush back in 2000, where he traveled the state in the "Straight Talk Express," standing for many as a symbol of hope. I was a political reporter for The Washington Post then, and McCain sat in an office of a law firm, a man in desperate need of caffeine. Still, the talk of 2000 brought a big grin to his face as he said, "We're gonna get the bus out sooner rather than later. And I promise you'll be invited on board and we'll have some fun."
Now all of us in the media travel in a separate bus from the increasingly distant candidate. There are those who believe there is still some of the 2000 McCain left, but as a member of the campaign press corps, it's increasingly hard to see. Press conferences after events--which we cool kids call "avails" -- have all but vanished from his daily schedule. The area on the plane meant for "straight talks" with the press generally goes unused. I had a question for two days, that I never got a chance to ask him.
Moreover, McCain increasingly seems like a man who, while breaking bread with the Christian right, is prone to holding grudges. Nowhere was that more apparent than in Columbus, Ohio, when Elizabeth Holmes from The Wall Street Journal tried to ask something, only to have McCain look right past her and say, "Who else has a question?" This had followed a couple of pieces in The Journal that Holmes had either written, co-written or contributed to that explored the anger of the McCain camp.
In many ways, that's what it comes down to, doesn't it? Anger. As we learned from Yoda. in "The Empire Strikes Back," the moment when one begins to act out of hate, instead of peace with the force as his ally, is precisely the moment when one begins down the path from Jedi to Sith. And there's no doubt that's what McCain has become--full of rage, particularly at the press left to cover him.
To drive home the point last week about McCain's actions being completely overshadowed by the coverage of Sen. Barack Obama, the McCain staff issued fake press badges featuring the Statue of Liberty on one side, saying "McCain Press/Corps/JV Squad/'Left Behind to Cover America.'" On the other side was a French-looking man, with the same words translated into the language o' love. While that was a moment of levity, it was just a moment.
At the end of last week, McCain's camp went as far as to send an email to reporters comparing the differences in coverage between the local and national press. It was more than an expression of contempt. It was insulting. Of course the coverage and headlines between a local and national outlet will be different. We've heard his jokes, his stump speech, his loooooove for nuclear power. They haven't. Our job is to put an event in national context; theirs is to serve their local constituents.
Of course. McCain had reason to complain. His campaign efforts were indeed overshadowed by those of his opponent. It should be noted that the press covering Obama have had their own difficulties. But on the day Obama addressed 200,000 people in Berlin, McCain visited a German restaurant in Columbus and then talked about the importance of sunscreen and "light exercise" with Paula Zahn and Lance Armstrong at the biker's "LIVESTRONG" cancer summit on the campus of Ohio State University. If you were a news director or editor with limited editorial space, which would you choose?
But McCain's real transformation occurred when he began to attack his opponent. There was a time when McCain labeled Obama as "naive," for wanting to sit down with the leaders of Iran and put together a definitive 16-month pullout from Iraq. Last week, however, the GOP's likely nominee grew increasingly angry at Obama, then on a well-chronicled and supremely-successful tour of the Middle East and Europe. Last Monday McCain indicated that Obama had no right to the Oval Office, dismissing him as "someone who has no military experience whatsoever." The following day McCain went even further, saying, "It seems to me Sen. Obama would rather lose a war to win a campaign."
With that, it felt like the McCain of 2000 had disappeared entirely. His rage has blinded him to missed opportunities, to moments where he could make people remember who he was during that long-ago golden primary race and, more important, what his domestic agenda will be. Should he win, he will do so as a man unrecognizable from the one that made himself into a beloved political figure eight years ago. If any of the man that was John McCain still exists, it will be a long and difficult struggle to find him.
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© 2007 The Washington Independent
Comments:
Posted 07/29/2008 09:11am with
I personally believe that McCains ability to stay relatively close to Obama this cycle is based on people remembering the quick, sharp McCain of 1999. As voters tune in and see what the decade has done to the maverick, that is turn him in to a disengaged angry codger, his polls will crater ala the China Syndrome.
Posted 07/29/2008 10:43am with
I personally believe that McCain’s ability to stay relatively close to Obama this cycle is based on the American electorate being mostly composed of fearful racist nitwits. Take a look at the comments following any AOL election story and your blood will run cold. That’s where America speaks, not sites like this where people who believe in science, reason, and finding out the truth before we make up our minds post their opinions. I only hope the America that comments on AOL can’t find their polling place on election day.
Posted 07/29/2008 11:35am with
John McCain is suffering from Cancer and Alzheimers. Before we vote for him we must be told the true results of yesterday’s melanoma surgery and also have him evaluated to determine his Alzheimers state
Posted 07/29/2008 11:50am with
I will not even watch McShame when he speaks on tv because he makes me sick at my stomach. The lies along with the expressions are more than I can bear to watch. His campaign can’t do anything to help at this point, he’s doomed. Go back to the ranch old man and count all your money.
Posted 07/29/2008 12:11pm with
I surely wish McCain WERE “doomed,” as readyforchange fantasizes above. As always, intelligent, educated people can’t believe that the stupid American mob is going to vote for an idiot, and a grumpy, doddering one at that. But the mob is now demonstrating how much dumber they’ve become since 1932. Back then, after they were hit over the head with the Hoover two by four, they actually sort of “got” it. But now, even $4 gas, foreclosed houses, and recession can’t penetrate their invincible ignorance and hard-wired racism.
Posted 07/29/2008 12:50pm with
A “maverick?” John McCain? The man who gets top marks from National Review, a right wing house organ? Every time he has had an opportunity to stand up to the Bush claque, he’s voted with them.
Moreover, along with the idea of being a “maverick,” for decades McCain actively cultivated the image of a “warrior” and “war hero,” the genuine article, toting that carefully crafted impression around like a Louis Vittuon carry-all. The problem is that the supposedly genuine Vittuon actually is a cheap knock-off, a piece of counterfeit luggage that has no more in common with the real thing than I have with McCain himself.
After years of McCain perpetuating the myth, it’s time someone publicly calls McCain what he is: An exaggerator of his military experience and fabricator of his status as war hero.
To bastardize a distasteful line he unwrapped this week, McCain would rather win a campaign than be honest about his wartime experience.
In fact, the record shows that the Man Who Would Be President was a not-very-good Naval Academy student who preferred parties to studying and graduated in the bottom five of his Annapolis class; a mediocre pilot who crashed three jet fighters during training before being shipped out to ‘Nam where he crashed a fourth; an insubordinate junior officer who got shot down over Hanoi because he disobeyed direct orders to abandon his 23rd mission and return the A-4 Skyhawk he flew to the USS Forrestal; and, as a POW, willingly provided so much intelligence – admittedly, bits of it false – and co-operated so extensively with the North Vietnamese in exchange for favourable treatment over a three year period that his fellow prisoners at the Hanoi Hilton gave him the derisive nickname “Songbird.” In propaganda aimed at the US, the North Vietnamese even used his nickname in a news release about McCain, not understanding it was an insult by prisoners who were disgusted with his behaviour.
Put bluntly, the closest John McCain has ever come to a war hero was when he sat on his grandfather’s lap as a child. The first John McCain commanded naval aviation at the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. The candidate’s father, also an Admiral named John, commanded American forces in Vietnam for a time.
In other words, John McCain III (or “Johnny Three Sticks” as a Republican Senate aid called him when being interviewed for this post) not only changes his positions on substantive issues in the campaign, he totally changes the reality of his “service to my country.” No wonder he seems to have so much trouble staying on message as a candidate; he can’t keep the story of his life straight.
In the process of repeatedly violating the Military Code of Conduct during his time as a POW, he placed other naval airmen in jeopardy. Unclassified North Vietnamese and Pentagon records confirm that he provided Hanoi with detailed information about the number of airplanes on the Forrestal, flight paths into and out of North Viet Nam, how targets were selected, the positioning of rescue ships and the success rate of attacks from fighter-bombers based on his carrier. As far as can be discovered, the only thing he deceived the North Vietnamese about was the names of the pilots with whom he flew, for which he substituted the names of the Green Bay Packer’s offensive linemen. McCain has dined out on the Green Bay Packer story for decades, omitting the other, less noble, portions of his captivity.
If the fact that his father and grandfather were Annapolis grads kept him from being booted out of the Navy, then his family background also contributed to McCain being awarded 28 medals including a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit for Valor, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze stars, two commendation medals, and a dozen other service medals. But he only flew 23 missions – which amounts to a medal-and-a-half for roughly every hour he flew in combat.
“There were infantry guys – grunts on the ground – who had more than 7,000 hours in combat,” explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs – the first official US representative in Vietnam since the 1973 fall of Saigon.
“I can tell you that there were times and situations where I’m sure a prison cell would have looked pretty good to them by comparison,” Bell states. “But the question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down.”
Eventually, even the Navy was on to McCain. He left the service after being told twice that he would not be made an Admiral like his father and grandfather.
For years, McCain has been an unchecked master at manipulating an overly friendly and oft-times biased news media. The former POW turned Congressman, turned U.S. Senator, turned Presidential candidate, has managed to gloss over his failures as a pilot and his collaboration with the enemy to become America’s POW-hero presidential candidate.
The best way to describe McCain is “self-serving;” if that’s not enough, add “Seen better days,” “out of touch” and “liar.”
Posted 07/29/2008 01:32pm with
At one time…a fews years ago, McCain was on his game. As years have past, and he gets older—things are and have been changing. (As this occurs as you get on in years.) His exhibiting bouts of jealousy and gaffes (which many wish to call it). However, I truly think McCain, has entered the early stages of dementia. I’ve seen it many times with dear friends of mind. It’s not about him lying when he says one thing and then another…and becomes adamant when someone corrects him. He truly believes what he has said at that moment. He possesses short-term memory. Every last one of us, as voting Americans, should be v-e-r-y concerned with this problem he has. We had better rethink our thoughts, if some wish him to become the President of these United States. (Not to mention his cancer problems. Now that’s another issue to be discussed at a later date!)
A Truly Concerned Senior Without Color
Posted 07/29/2008 03:26pm with
I remembered the maverick John Mccain! The one who bucked the system, to get things done. This reporter expressed exactly how I have felt this last year! I felt bad about going from Republican to Demacrate. I fear of john mccain becomeing our president and endangering all of us, over rode my party loyalty. I do feel bad for the old man that he has become. I thought it was from Mental Illness, but as I listen to Racheal M, on the news talk, I realize Mccain had a lot of this in him already and could fool a lot of people. Now the high tech world has caught up with him, and part of what he use to use to fool us, has been mixed up in his mind and his mental illness. This seems to be what it has turned out to be! Attempts at lie and cover ups that turned into horrible gaffe’s that us viewers where catching, while the media continued to cover it up, and surger coat it. What we didn’t catch U-tube vedios did catch and put on loops for all to see. But, then there’s times where we see his anger,confusion and his mental struggle to stay in control. It is so sad to see this once strong maverick turn into a sick mental case in front of our own eyes! Even the old like myself, have been able to see it clear! It’s time the media stops trying to sheild him! The old reporters, and commentary’s have to face the fact. For this old man sake, this country’s sake, and for the sake of their family’s! This old man cannot be our President!
Posted 07/29/2008 04:53pm with
The American public should demand that John McCain undergo a complete mental and physical examination. He is not well, does not look well, acts like he’s losing it, and his anger management capacity seems to lessen every day. It is not right that he only allowed a few select people with no recording devices of any kind only a few hours to examine his medical records- which we do not even know are all of his records.
He is acting very strange. He cannot stay on topic. He has this silly grin that most professionals in health care would note as almost a tick or mental glitch. But again, beyond the forgetfulness the biggest clue to his mental and physical incompetency is his anger. People who are not fully in control of the faculties always have anger problems while they are first starting to cope with the difficulties. Rather than blame themselves, they lash out at anyone else because they are so consumed with the apparent loss of control they feel a need to immediately get some control back in their lives- ie. they get mad and try to bully those around them thus creating a feeling that they are in control. Obviously this is not real control and McCain is increasingly becoming frustrated not by Obama’s coolness but by a growing realization that he is simply not up to the job of winning the election and certainly not up to running the country.
Sad but true, McCain is just a mean old man with an private appreciation that he is not what he once was.
Posted 07/29/2008 05:17pm with
tick-tick-tick… he’s going to explode soon… bring on the debates!!!
Posted 07/29/2008 05:42pm with
This old man has been mean all the time. The only thing he has turned is America’s stomach.
Posted 07/29/2008 06:06pm with
Mr. McCain is laudable as the poster child for OWG’s past their prime.
He may well be a war hero, depending on whether getting shot down makes you a victim/hero or a not so great pilot but, the Old White Guys Club, is getting too crowded with folks like me, who are under 60 and way under 70 to feel that just because he’s experienced, that gives him some right of being bestowed because it’s “His Turn”.
It’s testament to his era and that wane is well into the cusp of power base shifting.
Look at his heralds, Novak, Buchanan, Mc Laughlin etc. These folks of the not quite a haircut and boxy shoulder suits, are assuming that there is one more day in the sun, and a way to transfer what power they once had, onto McCain’s maverick legacy.
The issues are too compelling, and those who fail to acknowledge that youth in beings who are in their 40’s and 50’s is likely gauged as more circumspect and able to malleably compromise for the greater good.
Circumstances are conspiring against him and yes, he comes off as angry.
I recently mentioned to a card carrying PUB, the reason I could never support McCain is because he does the heel lift thing when he’s overcompensating and making a point.
He lifts his frame and elevates his stature to appear taller, then sets himself back down.
That has quelled a bit of late, but Jimmy Carter used to do that, somewhat Napoleonic I would venture.
It’s simple, OBl was never surrounded by the SWAT team at Tora Bora and we left the exits unguarded, after that it’s all been shit running down hill.
So John, since you’ve chosen the lowest common denominator now, sinking to the Bush baited fringe support, always wash your hands before eating.
Posted 07/29/2008 07:40pm with
”...Elisabeth Bumiller, the venerated New York Times reporter…”
Venerate: To regard with respect, reverence, or heartfelt deference.
This is a joke, right? Or an error. You meant to say “discredited” or at least “buffoonish,” surely.
I mean, Bumiller!!!
Posted 07/29/2008 09:52pm with
Charleyjames said everything I would like to have said-but better. The only other issue I would address and I am not all that knowledgeable about Mr.Pappu,I do not understand how even if you liked the man personally- it was still unmistakably your job as a journalist and your responsibility to tell the truth about the man and not to continue to perpetuate the media’s version of him. I get the feeling if he had stayed charming, even though clearly not up to the task of the Presidency, the media would still be fawning all over him. Thanks for being honest and I am hoping some of the others will follow.
Posted 07/30/2008 03:09am with
McCain has always been a real Ba——-, if you in the CCM would just have gone to ARIZ., and talked to some real Local People,all you in the CCM would ever talk to was PARTY BRASS about McCain,I use to visit my sister that lived in ARIZ. I have heard alot of storys about McCain that you never Hear or see in print. I wish you in the CCM would get out and about and get the ELETE stink off you. MY sister livrd in Mesa.
Posted 07/30/2008 11:38am with
McCain strikes me as, a mean, old, obstinate man. He should NOT be the leader of these United States…or the leader of anything for that matter. Besides
his “changed” character, he I believe, is in the early stages of dementia. Many dare not use this word. As time passes, voters will realize what others
call gaffes, ARE NOT! Now this is a very scary thing for us to have a president in office with this condition. Both Democrats and Republicans, had better hone in on this with seriousness. He continues weekly and increasingly, to make important errors and missteps. This is quite serious and ALL should be worried! Do observe please.
A Concerned Senior Citizen
Posted 07/30/2008 07:30pm with
actually, i think McCain wouldn’t do this normally,
i think the repug party put him up to negative attacks.
But them again, it almost looks like he would do anything togetelected, or maybe thats the repugs pushing him ?
angry old mnan yells at cloud…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/911review/2704635781/
another married republican having an affair
http://www.flickr.com/photos/911review/2717453037/
Posted 08/03/2008 08:06am with
In a democracy, we need real journalists and not just media people. Real journalists should never be close to the candidate regardless of how charming they find him or her to be. It is an inherently oppositional role. Granted, we humans, if we are not sociopaths, tend to become attached to people we spend regular time with; if someone seems likeable, becoming attached is even more likely. Accordingly, it is especially important that real journalists covering McCain and any other candidate maintain an intellectual and emotional distance from candidates.
Having said that, it seems obvious to me that in our times media people are predisposed to look favorably on the Republican candidate and to see the Democratic candidate as “other”; even the people who think of themselves as real, practicing journalists do this and are unaware of this pre-existing bias in their attitudes. Republicans and the corporate media over the last thirty years have done a good job of shaping public perceptions such that Democrats and a good chunk of the population who support them or are to the left of them are seen as hostile aliens.
Having said *that*, I think media people have failed radically in looking at the entire history of John McCain’s behavior once he was back in the United States. He is not a particularly nice man when you look under the hood. For one thing, he is a misogynist. He is also not a particularly ethical man. You should all have been looking more deeply into the period of the Keating Five, at his ties with Abramoff, and various other questionable but enriching and exploitative activities he has been involved in. THAT is the role of a real journalist.
Posted 08/12/2008 12:11pm with
Do you ever wonder why so many people are supporting Barack Hussein Obama?
Could it be that this nation is becoming colorblind and does not care if a good person is black, white, red or tan?
Could it be that the American people don’t care if a person worships as a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, or Jew?
Could it be that people remember the scandals of the Clinton And Bush years?
Could it be that the American people know that if it was not for the Clinton’s filth and scandals that Al Gore would be completing his second term in office.
Could it be that the American people remember Bush and McCain looking into our eyes and saying, believe me there are weapons of mass destruction?
Could it be that the American people are shell shocked that over 4,000 precious lives have been lost fighting the wrong war in the wrong country against the wrong enemy?
Could it be that the American people realize that Carl Rove politics brought our nation to where it is today?
Posted 08/13/2008 11:08pm with
I still strongly believe that the” white haired old dude” is senile.
Posted 08/14/2008 08:34pm with
I’m waiting for the debates, I can see him when Obama brings out his knowlege on the issues, McCain is going to get mad.
You think he for the American people as a whole or himself. Since he is drawing a full salary, pension from the Navy, and getting Social Securtity, and now he want another pension that from the Presidency if he gets elected.
I really truly think the American people will lay aside the party this election and vote for the one whole is for all Americans
Posted 08/16/2008 03:40pm with
I agree completely with pjsandiego & julien38.