Carolyn Lewis: About John McCain’s Experience
Posted at 4:18 pm, October 15th, 2008
Every time I hear somebody say that John McCain has more “experience” than Barack Obama, I think of a couple who used to live next door. The pair were good neighbors, friendly folks, but they had one shortcoming. They liked to travel around the world, and when they came back, they insisted that their friends sit through long slide shows of places they had visited.
What they did was take organized tours to tourist spots such as cathedrals and museums. What they didn’t do was get off the beaten trail to meet locals and therefore come away with fresh insight and understanding of the peoples and places they had visited. While their experiences provided impressive lists, the travelers returned home as unenlightened as they were when they went away.
Which brings me to McCain’s experience as a POW in Vietnam. Normally he casts these years in terms of his poignant personal story, and we are willing to grant him the honor owed to him for his service. But the only time that he acknowledged that his country might have been wrong to be engaged in Vietnam and wrong to be bombing civilians in Hanoi, was when he was forced to say so while being tortured. Once freed, and even today, he insists that the war was worth winning – something he made most clear in a recent Atlantic Monthly article. He expresses not a momentary pang for his role as a pilot dropping bombs on people far below where he was flying.
Furthermore, as a pilot, until his capture and internment, McCain experienced the war far from the mud and terror of the jungles on the ground where his fellow warriors were fighting and where so many died. He seems to have come away from his awful experiences in captivity unchastened by pity for the thousands of Americans and Vietnamese who suffered in that misbegotten misadventure.
Rather he remains bellicose, as wedded as ever to the use of military force in places like Iran and long-term in Iraq, without any visible evidence of concern for the terrible human consequences. McCain has experienced much, but that is no proof that the lessons he learned have left him wiser. He seems to have returned from most of his experiences the same man he was before, which in a way negates much of the value of what happened to him.
Isn’t it time for reporters to stop tossing around the word “experience” when describing a candidate, and to start taking a closer look at what exactly the candidate has learned from his encounters with the world?
October 19th, 2008 at 2:03 pm |
You are so right! Sherman was an experienced general, but he made a lot of blunders.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:15 pm |
Ms. Lewis, You make several good points; however, I believe you speak with typical liberal media naivete regarding the US Military’s use of air power in the Vietnam war. You state “…wrong to be bombing civilians in Hanoi”, when, in fact, all militaries have bombed civilian centers since the beginning of warfare. It is a central strategy for winning a war.
However, as you know, the US military in Vietnam and in all conflicts since has taken great pains and risks to its air crews and equipment, to target only militarily significant facilities. They, don’t, by design, indiscriminately target civilian centers as was the case for all militaries through and including WWII. See the WWII Japanese bombing of Chinese cities if you want to review a particularly gruesome campaign. Or the US fire-bombing of Japan, to say nothing of the Atomic bomb drops (which probably saved my father’s life, who was preparing for the invasion of Japan).
Regardless of its distate to our better selves, if one is engaged in warfare, the only choice is to fight to win and that is precisely what the US Military, and John McCain, were doing in Vietnam. As a nation, we should expect nothing less and we shouldn’t demean our military men and women who serve their country, follow orders; often against their personal desires, and carrying out their terrible duty. As one who has a personal friendship with a Gulf War one aviator, their committment to duty regardless of the pain they inevitably feel in their soul doesn’t need to be demeaned by talking of “dropping bombs on people far below where he was flying”.
My two cents.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:57 pm |
Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam escalation now claims that it was a futile mission, launched on a deception. McNamara had access to a much wider variety of information and intelligence than McCain. How can McCain claim to know more about the Vietnam War than Robert McNamara?
October 28th, 2008 at 8:25 am |
Ahhh the left..ever the Monday morning quarterback, and always could have done it better..but never do. Ms. Lewis never had to fight for her freedom, or fight to protect it, just let others do it and criticize them later. Nice.