August 17, 2008
But Is He Ready to Lead?
John
Sidney McCain III has come a long way since his childhood days as a
ragamuffin scampering down the rat-infested streets of the Chorrillo ghetto
that he called home. Today, he is an incredibly popular man who stands
ready to take command of government and lead America.
His list of achievements is impressive. He has written a number of
books ― it's hard to keep count, but
he has at least five to his credit. And
he has a long
list of movie and television credits, including Faith of My Fathers,
which relates his experiences as a prisoner of war, and Wedding Crashers.
He has hosted "Saturday Night Live" which, surprisingly, some critics find
more impressive than his appearance on "WWF Smackdown!" And he has
other entertainment credits too numerous to list here.
The gent owns somewhere between six and ten homes. He has taken
full advantage of the opportunities that America offers to all and made
himself
a reasonably wealthy man. He travels in style, whether on his own
"Straight Talk Express" bus, or in his wife's
corporate jet.
He knows how to promise more than he can possibly deliver to small former
Soviet republics. (One wonders what he may have promised to
Czechoslovakia lately.) He is a man of the world who holds
profound and value-based beliefs dear but who at the same time is
comfortable
changing his position when warranted ― by changes in circumstances,
facts, polls, opinions or his mood. Best of all, he's a jolly,
cheerful jokester who laughs at his own jokes with a hollow, gurgling sound
that frightens small children.
Still, there are detractors who claim that John Sidney
McCain III is flawed, a sort of Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, if you will, that
asserts that the distinguished gentleman is misogynistic and ill-tempered,
too old and out of touch with non-millionaire Americans, cranky,
short-tempered, erratic and mean-spirited. They relish the fact that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone
(specifically
at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station) which was territory controlled by,
but not part of, the United States, arguing that this renders him ineligible for the
Presidency since the
Second Article of the Constitution specifies that no one may be
President who is not a naturalized citizen. What they ignore is that
John McCain is generally presumed to be a U.S. citizen
because it is generally presumed that his parents completed the appropriate
paperwork with the nearby U.S. embassy to ensure his American citizenship. And, given that Senator McCain
is the presumptive nominee of the GOP (Gray Old Party), that should be good
enough!
Things
have gotten so bad that it was surprising when Cindy McCain recently
appeared with her right arm in a sling, and there were no snickers or veiled
accusations to be heard. True,
the explanation for her injury did sound odd: "she suffered a minor
wrist sprain when an 'enthusiastic supporter' shook her hand at a
fundraiser." Yeah, sure, and I know this girl who walks into a door
and bruises her forehead every time she pisses off her boy friend.
It is true that
John
McCain struggled with numerous challenges as a young man: anger
management issues, poor grades, his failed first marriage, and a proclivity
for airplane accidents. Worst of all,
by his own admission, during the first thirty years of his life, John McCain
did not love America. Not that he was some peace-loving,
flag-burning hippy. Oh, no! He joined the service, not out of
patriotism, but because it was expected of him ― what
with both his father and grandfather having been admirals ― and he only
discovered afterward, happily, that he "enjoyed shooting rockets and
dropping bombs and shooting off guns."
But what is to be admired is that John McCain has conquered
these challenges of youth. His short temper is now a validation of his
status as a maverick. He solved his failed first marriage with a
second marriage to a Budweiser heiress. He has avoided mishaps in the
air by allowing others to pilot (and, on the ground, wife Cindy to drive).
And he has successfully avoided poor grades by not learning a thing in the
last thirty years.
Oh, yes, that other thing: he now loves
America and wishes to lead us in war.
His detractors have heaped upon him a
myriad of trivial complaints.
