McCain's Tortured Untruths

Lots of folks have noticed John McCain's tendency to flip-flop during the presidential campaign, but over the past week he's sort of burst the sound barrier on self-contradiction, like the verbal Top Gun he is. In fact, he has so loosed the surly bonds of consistency that you've got to start wondering if there's some deeper meaning behind the constant double-talk.

On Monday, for example, after the bailout bill collapsed, McCain did a 180 in one breath: "Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame, it's time to fix the problem."

Then on Tuesday, just minutes after the candidate publicly decried the lack of "bipartisan good will," his campaign released an ad that accused Obama and the Democrats of blocking the reforms that he is certain would have averted this crisis. (Not so, says Factcheck.org).

When ABC's Ron Claiborne asked McCain that same day how could he insist he wasn't assigning blame while pointing fingers at Obama and the Dems, McCain stared like a porcelain doll and denied blaming anyone.

It's similar to his denial that he ever said he didn't know much about the economy--though that, too, is on tape.

Actually, the Janus-faced statements are marbled throughout McCain's campaign. "The fundamentals of the economy are strong"/the fundamentals are f***ed; I won't debate till the bailout deal is sealed/I'm hustling down to the debate even though the deal just collapsed. We could go on and on, and not just during this campaign--remember how the Confederate flag was bad, then good, then bad again? Or how Jerry Falwell was an agent of intolerance, only later to be elevated to good people? (See the full "My sister! My daughter!" drama here and here.)

All this fits inside the framing flip-flop between Senator Honor and McDirty Campaigner. McCain ran for the Republican nomination promising an "honorable" general election fight over the issues with his preferred opponent, Hillary Clinton (Bill Clinton even barnstormed the nation saying such a campaign would be civilized and super for the country). But when confronted by the unexpected rise of Barack Obama, McCain quickly resorted to the Paris Hilton ad, the Obama-is-a-sex-perv ad, and the ad insinuating Obama was in the pocket of an African-American former Fannie Mae CEO (who isn't even an Obama advisor, though he does share Obama's skin color).

It's not just that McCain lies (though he does). It's not just age or forgetfulness or a tendency to phone it in on policy (though his campaign, "concerned about his tendency to adopt the last opinion he has heard," does try to restrict McCain's cell phone use, according to the New York Times).

His reversals go far beyond the usual political hypocrisies--it's as if he's turning inside out, daily, hourly, sometimes minute-by-minute, right in front of our eyes.

And, inevitably, as his manner has begun to seem increasingly erratic, the McCain problem has come back, again and again, to torture. And not to his flip-flop on the Bush administration's use of torture, either, but to his own experience of being tortured during his five-and-a-half years in a POW camp.

I'm not suggesting McCain is a Manchurian Candidate, not at all. But let's think about the nature of McCain's heroism, which is both his chief claim to fitness for office and his gob-smacking comeback to any criticism whatsoever. His hero status grew out of a series of reversals--one minute the indomitable flyboy, next minute the helpless victim; one minute the son of the admiral commanding the fleet that was pounding Hanoi with heavy ordnance daily, the next, North Vietnam's most-prized prisoner, singled out for particularly vicious treatment. Offered early release, he refused, nobly insisting that he be treated no differently than the other prisoners. Yet even in claiming he was one of them, he was simultaneously asserting that he was somehow special.

To come home as a war hero and then become a congressman after five years of captivity and torture--well, that's a big reversal right there. Now he's holding out for victory in Iraq not unlike the way he held out in the Hanoi Hilton. And why not? Neither victory nor defeat can touch John McCain, because whichever way the vectors point, he remains true to himself, and wins. At least, in his own mind. (Of course, the one spot that suggests McCain's torture and temperament are a problem is ad non grata on TV.)

Today McCain seems addicted to alteration itself, and for its own sake. One minute he's angry and aggressive and the next, passive and indifferent (as Peggy Noonan put it, McCain is either "zero or 60, with no in between"). It wasn't only the ironic, self-deprecating John McCain that charmed the press for so long, but the fragile hero with an almost childlike innocence, whose halt-and-lame look invited the press to protect him from going through anything like a tortured interrogation ever again. Even if it's merely media questioning.

If you do "interrogate" him, you shall feel his wrath, as the editorial board of the Des Moines Register did on Tuesday, or as did Time magazine reporters to whom the newly cloistered candidate coldly denied that he and the press had once enjoyed freewheeling good times aboard the Straight Talk Express.

This duality of passivity and aggression is disturbing enough, but in times like these it makes Obama's consistent emotional tenor all the more reassuring. (After the bailout failure, Obama came out with his own accusatory ad, but it looks forward, and blames McCain primarily for years of supporting the trickle-down theory that helped create this mess.)

Still, McCain keeps putting himself forward for rejection and hurt as if he wants to plumb the depths of what they feel like once more. Dostoevsky said every compulsive gambler plays to lose, not to win. Let's hope McCain achieves that buried wish Nov. 4, so he doesn't feel the need to keep gambling with our future.

Leslie Savan, author of Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Pop Language in Your Life, the Media, and Like...Whatever and The Sponsored Life: Ads, TV, and American Culture, is a Pulitzer Prize finalist in criticism for her Village Voice columns about advertising and commercial culture.

Comments (16)

1. "Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame, it's time to fix the problem."

   THAT one was particularly ironic....

   in the FOLLOWING sentence, he contradicts himself!

   LOL

   Posted by Maskdelta at 10/02/2008 @ 11:56am

2. Well, thankfully he was there to push through that very pure Senate bailout legislation last night. Got right in there and took a stand on principle, not supporting a bill that had earmarks, whipping the other senators into shape.

   Oh wait...

   Posted by onthehelm at 10/02/2008 @ 12:28pm

3. McPalin is simultaneously a complimentary and an analogous contradiction...

   Posted by hsuBfools at 10/02/2008 @ 12:43pm

4. There are only a few notes in the scale.

   Yet, you can always rearrange them.

   You can never hear every song of victory.

   There are only a few basic colors.

   Yet, you can always mix them.

   You can never see all the shades of victory.

   There are only a few flavors.

   Yet, you can always blend them.

   You can never taste all the flavors of victory.

   Though poetic, the teaching is practical. No matter what our "art," it has only a few elements. Sun Tzu teaches that there are only five key elements in competition. Creativity means rearranging these components in a new way. Competitive advantage comes from using what already exists. We must first understand what those elements are; then we can arrange them.

   To beat a stronger opponent, first confuse, mix, mold:

   Sun Tzu puts this in terms of his soldiers:

   1. You must create momentum.

   2. You create it with your men during battle.

   3. This is comparable to rolling trees and stones.

   4. Trees and stones roll because of their shape and weight.

   5. Offer men safety and they will stay calm.

   6. Endanger them and they will act.

   7. Give them a place and they will hold.

   8. Round them up and they will march.

   Unfortunately for McPalin, it seems to be Obama that is utilizing our real world to do this.

   Posted by hsuBfools at 10/02/2008 @ 12:52pm

5. Posted by hsuBfools at 10/02/2008 @ 12:52pm

   Actually, if McCain TRULY DID know and follow Sun Tzu...Obama might be in trouble.

   It could indicate that his gaffes and Palin's "seeming" ditziness is just a ruse to sweep Obama into over-confidence.

   But it's getting REALLY late for that kind of deception...plus I really don't think McCain (yes, MCCAIN) is that smart.

   Posted by Maskdelta at 10/02/2008 @ 1:03pm

6. McCain says that Obama lead growing because "life isn't fair"...

   tell me about it when I foot the bill for your own greed...a dozen homes is quite enough...especially considering one on the market now has twenty bedrooms.....you could fit most towns in my rural county in one of your homes....

   not only is life not fair, life is tough...so sad for mccain....

   Posted by jrs112 at 10/02/2008 @ 2:08pm

7. The "heroism" is incessantly repeated by those who must accept what they cannot know. Magoo admitted to broadcasting propaganda for the enemy, for which he was accorded special treatment. (Axis Sally spent 12 years in prison for the same offense, and Lord HawHaw was hanged.) He was taken to a hospital, he was transferred to "the Plantation." It is reported also he gave helpful data to the enemy.

   I think a considerable portion of the urge to lie incessantly is how simply the reporters and the public eat it all up. Many a con man began with just such an easy opening; if this flies, then why not more of it?

   Even the notion that Magoo somehow has recently lost his "character" gives him more credit than he deserves. There is no evidence the husband who shopped around for a Trixie with treasure is not the real Magoo. The rest is a political concoction, and much of the old demented fool's anger today is at the game which no longer works.

   Posted by Tremonius at 10/02/2008 @ 5:48pm

8. After reading this I realized that some of McCain's flip flops may come because he is being "interrogated" under pressure (the campaign itself is an intense pressure-cooker), just as he was as a prisoner of war, so he gives the answer he thinks his interrogator (member of the press or person in the audience) wants, not the "consistent" one of clear policy. If this is true, I feel sorry for the guy, but that kind of reaction to pressure is not what we need in our president!

   Posted by tsnell at 10/02/2008 @ 6:02pm

9. So if McCain is serious, there are Republicans in Congress who would have voted for the bailout as the best thing for the nation, but decided not to because their feelings were hurt by the partisan politics of the Democrats. Is that putting your country first?

   Posted by sandersh at 10/02/2008 @ 9:12pm

10. Leslie, well written. Enjoyed every word while muting Palin. LIAR-MIMIC Rednecks three's no charm 2000, 2004, 2008. Stay home on Election Day.

    Posted by winyahn at 10/02/2008 @ 9:48pm

11. Wow, is she actually appealing to anyone? She's terrifying me. She's such a frozen-smile-bubblebrain.

    Posted by winyahn at 10/02/2008 @ 9:58pm

12. Wow, is she actually appealing to anyone?

    Posted by winyahn at 10/02/2008 @ 9:58pm

    oh, yeah.

    CRUSH THE EVIL TOWELHEADS!

    "eye-rack"

    just ask sen. mccain about the ol' "eye-rack".

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/02/2008 @ 10:08pm

13. Since Mr. McCain has gotten into this campaign he has become one of the world's leaders on Flip-Flops. . After he went to the Bush ranch and met with Bush Senior, he has changed his stance on every point to the opposite of what it was before. . If this all because he wants to be president that badly - then it is truely sad, desperate times call for desperate measures but even his actions go beyond sense and border on bizarre

    Posted by bbednarz at 10/04/2008 @ 5:03pm

14. His personal story of heroic behavior during the Vietnam war brings tears of admiration, his personal story of his career in the senate and his attempts at the presidency brings tears of frustration and anguish. One has to feel; sorry for the guy. he was destroyed by his parties cruel campaigning during his first attempt at the presidency by the George Bush apparatus and now he is being destroyed by events and his own senility. How will the GOP ever survive the stupidity of Sarah Palin.

    Posted by lachatte at 10/05/2008 @ 4:41pm

15. Turn around, spin around, pick a bale of cotton - turn around, spin around, pick a bale of hay!

    McSpin just doesn't realize how often he flipflops - maybe some of his handlers are right - he has slipped mentally and needs therapy and possibly hospitalization for a while.

    John, you were once a man of honor, maybe you can reclaim some of it.

    Pacrat, 10/06/08

    Posted by pacrat at 10/06/2008 @ 12:26pm

16. Let's also talk about outright lies. Last week, 70 MILLION Americans were exposed to probably the biggest deception the republican party has pull in a long time. BUT, in predictable Chimpy/Darth fashion they think they pulled it off..Well, here's news - you didn't. Here's some facts around Palin's claim about the Alaskan dis-investment in companies supporting the Darfur genocide. FROM ALASKA!!

    http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com

    Flat out lies...

    Posted by Winski at 10/06/2008 @ 12:45pm