Which is, in turn, based on the idea -- familiar to McCain watchers -- that most of his career can be interpreted as basically a series of temper tantrums. Do note: there's another plausible interpretation, which is that it's all straightforward opportunism (Left to save his career after the Keating 5! Still left to occupy vacant ground in 2000! Right to win the 2008 nomination! Even farther right to beat off a Tea Party challenge! Left again to regain his reputation with the national "neutral" press!). But while I certainly can't prove it, I tend to believe the tantrum explanation. Or at least emotion-based explanation. He gets wound up on things...they are usually at least compatible with his immediate electoral interests (as is the case with almost all politicians and their actions), but I don't really see good electoral reasons for his actions during Bush's first term, or for that matter right now.
Which leaves me, however, with one question that I don't have an answer to: are McCain's passions easily manipulable? Or are they all internally driven, and basically just something the rest of the political world has to navigate around. I suggested otherwise yesterday; I said that "a little more focus on Obama as a Kenyan socialist and a little less on nutty accusations of treason against Hagel might have gone a long way with the senator from Arizona." But I have no idea whether or not that's actually true. Hey, McCainologists: what do you think?
The "fits of pique" explanation seems pretty good to me.
ReplyDeleteI think the man has a set of really serious emotional disturbances, possibly from his war and POW experiences. Plus, he was always a totally unprincipled opportunist.
ReplyDeleteYour two propositions are not mutually exclusive.
It's also entirety possible that he is insane.
"Bomb, bomb Iran."
JzB
I am not a McCainologist. I just think it's been so long since he's ever been grounded in anything any of us would recognize as reality, how could he possibly keep his bearings? How could any of us?
ReplyDeleteThis is a guy who (this isn't intended as snark) seriously doesn't have to know or care exactly how many houses he has; can get on a Sunday show (a pretty important indicator of status in DC I'd imagine) any time he wants and they hang on his every word; has been a US Senator with all of the privilege and being surrounded by sycophants that must entail; and has gotten away with (with a few close calls) pretty much doing and saying whatever the hell he wants for decades.
I think the only reason he stands out at all is that he's caught in this weird spot where he's built a brand of being "principled" and "serious" but has also thrown his lot in with a peanut gallery of jackals who get crazier by the month. He has to stand with them enough of the time that they tolerate him, but is canny enough to know that getting too close to the pure pulsing Id is dangerous too.
So he maintains the middle ground by his own "triangulation," constantly tsk tsk'ing his inferiors, be they naive US presidents, or fellow GOP'ers, or the press, or whatever.
But it's rooted in nothing, I tells ya.
I also vote for the tantrum explanation. A Republican friend who knows McCain personally (yes, this is an anonymous anecdote, so take it or leave it) tells me McCain is one of the most unpleasant and ill-tempered individuals he's ever known.
ReplyDeleteI believe you! I didn't believe Harry Reid.
DeleteI hope you're not Harry Reid.
I'm not much for armchair psychoanalysis of public figures, but I find McCain's particular case really fascinating, much more than others do, it seems to me. McCain's an interesting guy, in that he is the grandson of an extremely impressive public figure, and he's the son of another public figure arguably more impressive still, and he himself, well, he ain't much.
ReplyDeleteIt must be odd to grow up a shrub in a family of towering oaks. I imagine such a one would receive quite a bit of "deference" (due to familial connections), but not much actual deference, the kind arising from merit. Some folks (perhaps famously - Dubya) might feel that any deference beats no deference at all, so smoke em if you got em, and don't worry about the phoniness of it all. The more likely response to disrespect for a shrub would be agitation; since, we are all misunderstood superheroes, aren't we?
In McCain's case, the best solution to that 'problem' would be to receive any sort of admiralty at all, even just one star to go with dad and grandpa's four. Short of that, the next best solution is to "generate" deference, which can be achieved by attaining a position of some power and then behaving totally erratically, such that everyone treats you with kid gloves.
I know what you're thinking: treatment with kid gloves isn't the same thing as deference. But maybe its close enough for government work. Maybe there's no better way for McCain to get there.
That's my theory - one of the interesting implications of it is, as frightening as the VP was on the GOP ticket in 2008, it was the other person on that ticket who was WAAAY more dangerous to our collective well-being if they had made it to the White House.
That's pretty pungently insightful psychoanalysis for a professed amateur.
DeleteThank you for the compliment, TapirBoy, I also realized that I forgot to add the obvious prescription for how to handle McCain (if my theory is correct):
DeleteTreat him like he's just as impressive as dad or grandpa, and not the annoying Fredo-type he comes across as, and I imagine he'd be putty in your hands.
I think he's been in a lot of physical pain for a really long time. Psychologically, he can't not be seriously messed up. (His marital history is consistent with this interpretation.)
ReplyDeletePeople in chronic pain crack in weird ways. I think calling it a temper tantrum belittles what he's been through.
How does that make it better, though?
DeleteIt doesn't. It's just how I see him. I do not think that he is solely responsible for the shape he's in - unlike Cruz, or Bachmann, or McConnell, or all the other chicken hawks.
DeleteThat doesn't mean I think he's an effective politician.
You might also look at footage from McCains town halls down herein Az. I think the crazy that the party is promoting actually scared him during the gun debate.
ReplyDeleteRemember, this guy lost the presidency by 7.2 points.
ReplyDeleteProbably as good a showing as any Republican could have made with the economy collapsing in late 2008.
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