Posted by Damozel | Let's cut to the chase: we all know that John McCain is, let us say, irascible. Is this a problem? Should we worry that he'll unleash the whirlwind on slight provocation? As Christopher Hitchens --- who I'd consider an expert in anger--- points out, we know what people mean when they talk about McCain's anger problem (he also has a blurting problem, as I discussed here).
"[A]nger," make no mistake about it, is the innuendo for instability or inadequacy. What if McCain doesn't really have both oars in the water or is either too tightly wrapped or not tightly wrapped enough? (Slate)
As Hitchens indicates, some instances of the McCain wrath might be classed as 'righteous.'
The anecdotes are both reassuring and distressing, and the best and the worst both come from Arizona. About two decades ago, facing a group in his state GOP that resisted proclaiming a state holiday for Martin Luther King Jr., he shouted, "You will damn well do this" and rammed the idea home with other crisp and terse remarks. Fair enough....
Michael Gerson got this exactly wrong when he recently indicted McCain for denouncing the Christian right in 2000, calling them "agents of intolerance," comparing them to Louis Farrakhan, and accusing them of being "corrupting influences."
Anyone who follows Hitchens knows that he won't see anything out of line about the criticisms of the Christian right.
Who could possibly have looked at the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson riffraff and said anything less? There was nothing "out of control" about that address. The problem there was not the senator's rough speech but the way that he later sought accommodation with the same frauds and demagogues. (Slate)
I'd really like to hear more of Hitchens' thoughts on this "accommodation", but he had an example of a MCain outburst he calls 'worrying.'
[I]n 1986, he was pursuing a Senate career and took extreme umbrage at an Arizona Young Republican who had given him too small a podium on which to stand before the cameras. It can be tough being 5 foot 9 (as I am here on tiptoe to tell you), but most of us got over it before we were out of our teens, let alone before donning the uniform of the U.S. armed forces.
The podium example is...worrying one, because otherwise one could defend McCain by arguing that some things are worth becoming enraged about (Slate).
Hitchens doesn't say in this piece what he thought of the story that was circulating a week or two ago about a very public disagreement between McCain and his wife.
John McCain's temper is well documented. He's called opponents and colleagues "shitheads," "assholes" and in at least one case "a fucking jerk."...
Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days. (HuffPost)
I find that fairly worrying as well, though I'm not sure that if McCain were elected he'd be the first to use foul language. I've certainly never heard a man address his own wife by that particular epithet, but perhaps this is just McCain being, um, irascible.
Hitchens also seems a little, though only a very little, concerned about McCain's habit of grabbing men by the necktie when he wants to parley with them.
One reason that I try never to wear a tie is the advantage that it so easily confers on anyone who goes berserk on you. There you are, with a ready-made noose already fastened around your neck. All the opponent needs to do is grab hold and haul. A quite senior Republican told me the other night that he'd often seen John McCain get attention on the Hill in just this way. Not necessarily hauling, you understand, but grabbing. Again, one hopes that the nominee has been doing this for emphasis rather than as a sign that he is out of his pram, has lost his rag, has gone ballistic, has reported into the post office that he's feeling terminally disgruntled today.(Slate)
In addition to the anger problem, he also has a joking problem, as I explain here (contains amusing footage of McCain's version of 'Barbara Ann'). It's probably his outbursts of 'hilarity' as much as his other outbursts that are responsible for his reputation as a loose cannon.
None of this particularly worries me compared to the far more worrying fact that McCain has abandoned all of what I once thought of as his 'principles' in order to pander to voters on the far right.
Hitchens mentions in passing McCain's 180 on the religious right. Sam Stein at the HuffPost harks back to a very different McCain with a very different view of the Iraq War.
Three years before the Arizona Republican argued on the campaign trail that U.S. forces could be in Iraq for 100 years in the absence of violence, he decried the very concept of a long-term troop presence.
In fact, when asked specifically if he thought the U.S. military should set up shop in Iraq along the lines of what has been established in post-WWII Germany or Japan -- something McCain has repeatedly advocated during the campaign -- the senator offered nothing short of a categorical "no."
"I would hope that we could bring them all home," he said on MSNBC. "I would hope that we would probably leave some military advisers, as we have in other countries, to help them with their training and equipment and that kind of stuff."
McCain held fast, rejecting the very policy he urges today. "I not only think we could get along without it, but I think one of our big problems has been the fact that many Iraqis resent American military presence," he responded. "And I don't pretend to know exactly Iraqi public opinion. But as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be."
The January 2005 comments, which have not surfaced previously during the presidential campaign, represent a stunning contrast to McCain's current rhetoric. (HuffPost)
In all the discussion about whether Hillary or Obama is the bigger liar (Obama by a moonlight mile, we say), there is amazingly little discussion of McCain's hard right turn. Sometimes people do legitimately change their opinions over time as they gather more evidence on this point or that point. But since McCain decided to run for the presidency, he's changed all his opinions.
This naked pandering reflects a level of cynicism about the tastes and intelligence of the electorate that's light years beyond anything we've seen from Hillary or Obama. It means that McCain can't be trusted to do anything he says --- which would be a good thing, of course --- and in fact, can't be trusted. Can't be trusted period.
I hope Dems are paying attention to what he's getting up to while we're squabbling with each other.
Memeorandum has more on his change of mind re: the Iraq war here.
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Uncontrolled anger is far more dangerous than many may believe. As an anger management provider, I can say with certainty that pervasive anger is not a risk that can be taken in a presidential candidate.
George Anderson, MSW, BCD, CAMF
Posted by: George Anderson | July 07, 2008 at 12:12 AM