The Saint Is Such A Pandering, Lying Flip-Flopper, It Takes An Entire Book To Describe It!

McCain: The Myth of a Maverick (Hardcover)
Matt Welch

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

This book came out last fall as a warning as to what was in store if McCain became President. Written by a libertarian, it offers a unique perspective of a highly compromised politician made into a "straight talking" myth by the media.

From the Washington Post review: Another two-fer, this book excoriates John McCain as a calculating flip-flopper and the media for mythologizing him as a straight shooter. Welch, assistant editor of the Los Angeles Times' editorial pages, compares McCain's "ritual self-criticism" to Alcoholics Anonymous's 12-step program: First, he admits his flaws, then he sublimates them to a greater cause, and finally he takes that cause to the people. The book contains entertaining tales of equivocation aboard the Straight Talk Express, as when McCain was asked this year whether contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV and he answered: "You've stumped me. . . . Let me find out. . . . I have to find out what my position was." But in the end, this unflattering portrait turns out to be surprisingly flattering

"How the journalistic elite got taken for a ride on the Straight Talk Express is one of the revelatory sagas of modern-day Washington. Matt Welch has the audacity to think that John McCain's views matter, not only his legends, and he smokes out McCain with gusto. You don't have to follow him every inch of the way into libertarian politics--as I do not--to be dazzled by the light he casts on a telling tragedy of American politics."

--Todd Gitlin, author of The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals

From the author: McCain gives the voting public what it craves but can't find -- a flesh-and-bones ideological portrait of a man onto whom people are forever projecting their own political fantasies. Relying heavily on McCain's own words, The Myth of a Maverick provides a decoder ring for the candidate's allegedly "maverick" actions, and paints the first realistic picture of what a John McCain presidency -- or any other White House in thrall to National Greatness Conservatism

"At any given time, he considers this or that dictator or authoritarian or just kind of mean guy to be, you know, the transcendent issue that we must focus on right now in this very moment. It is the only sort of lever or is the only grade that he knows to approach the world’s problems, which is, you know, identify evil everywhere and get in evil’s face...." Sounds like Bush, eh?

About the Author: Matt Welch is the Assistant Editorial Page Editor of the Los Angeles Times. He has worked previously for Reason magazine, the National Post, the Online Journalism Review, WorkingForChange.com, Tabloid.net, United Press International, and a series of publications in Central Europe. His writing has appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, Orange County Register, Salon.com, American Spectator Online, The Hardball Times and more.


Review excerpted from Politico:

The 12-step interpretation of McCain may seem like a stretch, but Welch offers circumstantial evidence to make it entirely plausible. McCain often uses buzzwords that are familiar to Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step program members, including warning people against “selfishness” and the real, telling clanker, “egotism.”

In his books and speeches, McCain is a “serial pre-emptive confessor of his sins,” said Welch. Aggressive public confession is the beginning of all 12-step movements. (As in “Hi, my name is John McCain, and I’m running for president.”)

McCain has “learned the value of saying, ‘Oh, I’m a bad person, I’ve made mistakes, I’m flawed.’ It’s part of his charm, and it’s done wonders for his career,” Welch said.

The Arizona senator had to learn that trick somewhere. Both McCain’s late father and his second wife, Cindy, were frequenters of 12-step programs — AA and Narcotics Anonymous, respectively.

This should be troubling, said Welch, because McCain’s new 12-step rhetoric coincided with changes in his views of foreign and domestic policy.

McCain had been a cautious realist on foreign policy whose military service and status as a Vietnam prisoner of war lent him real heft. His default positions on economic and social issues were in keeping with his family’s Republicanism and Arizona’s conservatism.

The new 12-step McCain became an advocate of invading countries for looking at us funny. He supported going into Iraq during the 2000 primaries, was the chief advocate for the troop surge in Iraq and is itching for a fight with Iran....

“One of the ironies of this book,” Welch said, is that it began out of his fondness for McCain. “He really is a charismatic fellow, he has a strange sense of humor and he’s an American hero.” However, Welch finds McCain’s vision for where to lead the country to be deeply troubling.

“He has a militaristic conception of citizenship, inadequate respect for the Constitution and, most importantly, during a time when the military is overstretched and the world has painted a giant red target on our backs, his threatens to be the most interventionist presidency since his idol, Teddy Roosevelt. I don’t think we can afford that right now.”