Debunking McCain McMyths: Flipflopper, Not a Maverick, ‘War Criminal’ And a Very Unlucky... Pilot

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Debunking McCain McMyths: Flipflopper, Not a Maverick, ‘War Criminal’ And a Very Unlucky Fighter Pilot
Jon Ponder | Jun. 17, 2008


In its May 29 edition, the New York Times contributed another meme to the myth of John McCain. In a front-page puff piece, the Times article led with this:

At a meeting in his Pentagon office in early 1981, Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman told Capt. John S. McCain III that he was about to attain his life ambition: becoming an admiral.
In the past few months, McCain has done more to expose the reality behind the fabulation that he is a straight-talking maverick than any of his political enemies ever could.
But Mr. McCain, the son and grandson of revered Navy admirals, was having second thoughts about following his family’s vocation. He had spent the previous four years as the Navy’s liaison to the Senate, sampling life in the world’s most exclusive club …

He had found a sense of purpose in an apprenticeship to some of the Senate’s fiercest cold warriors. And in Senator John G. Tower, a hawkish Texas Republican, he had found a new mentor, beginning a relationship that many compared to the bond between a father and son.

With Mr. Tower’s encouragement, Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral’s star to make a run for Congress, saying that he could “do more good there,” Mr. Lehman recalled. But Mr. Lehman knew duty was only part of the reason.

“He just loved it up there,” Mr. Lehman recalled. “Like very few military people, John heard the music up there, and he really wanted to do it.”

It certainly sounds plausible, but, writing in Huffington Post, Jeffrey Klein calls this story “highly improbable.” Reasons for doubt include the fact in his memoir, Worth Fighting For, McCain himself said he doubted he had the qualifications to be promoted; none of McCain’s close friends have ever mentioned his turning down a promotion to admiral; a promotion at that point would have gone against the Navy’s strict pecking order, advancing him past others whose turn it was to be promoted; and John Lehman a) had only been on duty as secretary of the Navy for two months and b), as secretary, was not in charge of who got promoted to admiral.

Klein also notes that the Times article also failed to point out that Lehman is now a McCain adviser.

Myths about John McCain die hard, and you can bet that this shiny new bullet-point — that he nobly turned down a promotion to admiral, with all its dynastic implications, to pursue a career in public service — is now a fact in his resume, even if it is not true.

The biggest myth about John McCain, of course, is that he is a straight talker. In the past few months, McCain has done more to expose the reality behind this fabulation than any of his political enemies ever could. In fact, in this month alone, McCain has flipflopped in public statements no less than 10 times, which has to be a record, according to by Jon Perr, writing at Crooks and Liars. Topics about which McCain has contradicted himself in June include the media’s treatment of Hillary Clinton, privatization of Social Security, the estate tax, domestic spying, restoring the Everglades, opposing investigations into Hurricane Katrina and more.

And there there is the myth that McCain is a maverick — if this is true, he’s the sort of maverick who voted with his party 95 percent of the time last year.

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http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/06/17/debunking-mccain-mcmyths/