186 of 196 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
His Mouth is Moving, May 20, 2008
Author Matt Welch provides a warning that if John McCain becomes the next President of the United States we as a nation may well have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. In this book, he tells us where McCain has come from, what he does, what he thinks, and where he is going if he becomes the chief executive.
McCain comes from a very long military tradition in which his father and grandfather served as admirals. Reared in and near the capital where he lived most of his life (!) with a heavy dose of paternal influence, and an education at an expensive preparatory school and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, John McCain sees himself as the romantic and fatalistic warrior Robert Jordan from "For Whom the Bells Toll." He prides himself on being rebellious, yet principled.
What he does is divorce his wife who kept the family together raising three children in spite of a bad automobile accident that gave her permanent injuries, while he was in captivity. Lieutenant Commander McCain is no sooner back in D. C. when he begins several extramarital affairs, and chases after a beer heiress seventeen years his junior. He decides to jump into politics declaring that Arizona, the headquarters of the distributorship, is to be his home state. Claiming to be in the tradition of Barry Goldwater and the representative of the common man, he is neither liked by Goldwater, nor ever found amongst the working or poorer classes of his constituency preferring the company of the wealthy.
In the tradition of his alcoholic father, McCain believes that principles and honesty are the most important things even if the latter and the condition seem incompatible. Just as a twelve-stepper will do and as a military officer is trained to do, McCain will admit that he has made past mistakes and is willing to air them in public. This adds to his charm of honesty despite waffling, changing, and spinning on a number of issues throughout his career. Even though he "fesses up" in his latest book about the Keating Scandal, McCain makes it clear that he did it because of his principles and his obligation to help his constituents.
According to the author, McCain is poised to raise flip-flopping and spinning to an art form to get elected. He is now for the Bush tax cuts despite having been against them three years ago. Why? Eliminating the tax breaks would mean a raise in taxes, and he doesn't want to raise taxes, so now he favors keeping the cuts. Uh-huh. He once referred to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as evil, but has actively sought their support. McCain has also accused Americans of not supporting our troops if they did not support the war. By this logic, he stands accused of the same thing in previous military involvements.
And now, where is he going? McCain wants to emulate his heroes, Theodore Roosevelt and Robert Jordan. He believes that it is our destiny to be the strongest country in the world, and it is our right to wipe out terrorism and tyranny wherever it exists. For him, there is no returning to a Vietnam style conflict without victory. There is no negotiation. It will be our way or the highway.
This short book reveals something about the man and the politician of John McCain. It is interesting and revealing, even if not powerful or riveting. The tone is matter-of-fact, and not vociferous. I had the impression that author-journalist simply wanted to reveal the man behind the public persona. I would recommend it highly for those who are politically involved, and want to learn more about their candidates.
This book supplies plenty of evidence to the anecdotal question: "How can you tell if a politician is lying?"
244 Days and a Wake-Up until one tyrant is gone.
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67 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A biography in the tradition of Nixon Agonistes, December 25, 2007
Matt Welch brings back a tradition in biography that was once a hallmark in American politics, but has declined in the last twenty years: the sober-minded character study. Taking a page from Garry Wills, Henry Adams and Theodore White, Welch sets out to examine something in his subject that is all too easily forgotten in today's pundit-dominated political coverage: what does McCain actually believe? Not a hatchet job by any stretch of the imagination: although writing as a libertarian critic, Welch is fair enough to his subject that he allows the reader to form his own conclusions about McCain's stances on issues like campaign bribery reform, while delineating the clear rupture between the small government, pro-privacy but anti-Civil Rights tradition of Goldwater and the activist, big government conservatism of McCain and Bush. A must-read for the 2008 campaign.
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42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughtful, thorough analysis, January 19, 2008
I have read a lot of biographies of political figures -Woodrow Wilson; Theodore Roosevelt; George Wallace, Walter Mondale, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon - and rank Welch's recent bio of Sen. John McCain up with the best of them. Although not a traditional biography, in that it is not a history of McCain's life but rather a deep analysis of his political philosophy, McCain, The Myth of a Maverick is valuable because it exposes the many contradictions and tensions between the public persona of presidential candidate and senator and the private individual. And, Welch asks the all important question: given what we know about McCain from his own words, what kind of president would John McCain be?
In writing about a living person, Welch faces a delicate dilemma: on one hand, the fact that his subject is alive gives the author prospect of direct and intimate access (access ultimately denied by McCain) but this is countered by the intense pressure to self-censor that does not exist when the subject is dead and one no longer has to worry about hurting the person's feelings. Welch is open about his affinity for McCain as well as his own political values, but unlike most journalists who have covered McCain, refuses to ignore the less than attractive facts about the man.
Since McCain, the Myth of a Maverick is more political analysis rather than traditional political biography, it is on the short side, yet nonetheless succinctly captures the basic narrative of McCain's life as it relates to McCain's political career and ambitions.
The underlying purpose of this book is also the goal of political journalism: to reveal that which is hidden, which, in McCain's case, is in plain sight. The most prominent theme of the book is the fact that the Emperor has no clothes and has openly been parading around Washington and the nation naked. That the political press and much of the country has chosen to ignore this fact reflects as much on the weaknesses of American political journalists and the American people as it does of McCain.
As a journalist, Welch writes in an easy, accessible manner, and manages to make his subject interesting. With biography, there is little plot; only the degree to which the subject's life is interesting determines how much of a page-turner a biography will be. This book reads quickly; it took me less than 8 hours to read it; someone with smaller chunks of time could finish it within a weekend.
Anyone considering voting for Sen. McCain as well as the dozens of journalists covering the McCain campaign should read this book. Those inclined to support the senator because of his image as a "maverick" are likely to have their assumptions seriously challenged; those who dislike McCain for various reasons will probably have their feelings confirmed. Either way, McCain, the Myth of a Maverick is a revealing yet thoughtful expose of the senior senator from Arizona.
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