Straight talk By: ADAM REILLYIt’s time to cover John McCain again — and here are ten good places for the media to start.
It’s been a very quiet spring for John McCain. The last big hit the Arizona senator took, media-wise, came this past February, when the New York Times ran a story on McCain’s relationships with lobbyist Vicki Iseman and communications mogul Lowell W. Paxson — a piece that ended up much worse for the Times than for McCain, who looked victimized by the paper’s insinuations of adultery. Since then, the press has focused almost exclusively on the protracted Democratic grudge match between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Both candidates have been covered in exquisite detail for the past few months; so have their campaigns, their spouses, and sundry other subjects of debatable relevance (Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Clinton’s Bosnia fib, Obama’s flag-less lapels). It’s been easy to forget that McCain even exists.
But now, following Obama’s win in North Carolina and close loss in Indiana, the campaign has entered a new phase. Clinton is still a candidate, but it’s harder than ever to imagine a scenario in which she’ll win. And the press, as former Phoenix staffer Dan Kennedy noted in a recent Guardian online column, is finally switching into general-election mode. This means it’s time to start covering McCain again — not by trotting out the usual war-hero-turned-blunt-maverick narrative, but by taking a hard look at the strengths and weaknesses he’d bring to the presidency.
Of course, McCain has a well-documented knack for charming the press into submission. So here, for the men and women who’ll be spending long hours on the Straight Talk Express, is a handy list of 10 McCain stories worth pursuing over the next few months:
1) It’s the economy, Senator
This past January, the Huffington Post reported that, in a meeting with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, McCain said he “doesn’t really understand economics.” McCain denied the report. But as his then-rival Mitt Romney noted in a subsequent press release, McCain actually has a long history of such remarks. (One example, drawn from a December 2007 Boston Globe story: “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should. I’ve got [former Federal Reserve chair Alan] Greenspan’s book.”) How does McCain assess his economic knowledge now? And what concrete steps, beyond a wide array of tax cuts, would he take to keep America’s economic woes from worsening?
2) His Islam problem
McCain is going to argue that Obama is dangerously inexperienced on foreign affairs. He’s already hammered Obama for his willingness to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But there’s reason to question McCain’s foreign-policy aptitude as well, especially regarding things Islamic. In 2006, McCain said he’d deal with ongoing problems in Iraq by sitting down together Sunnis and Shiites and telling them to “stop the bullshit.” This year, he’s confused Sunnis and Shiites on multiple occasions. Understanding Islam and the Middle East is absolutely essential to America’s national security. Does McCain grasp them well enough to be president? And can he demonstrate this understanding while speaking off the cuff?
3) Money and politics as usual?
Vague hints of an extramarital affair notwithstanding, the aforementioned Times story contained a kernel of a valid question: does McCain’s reputation as a reformer dedicated to reducing the influence of money on politics — a reputation McCain assiduously cultivated after he was implicated in the Keating Five scandal — square with his own actions? Consider this passage from David Brock and Paul Waldman’s recent book, Free Ride: John McCain and the Media (Anchor):
For his 1998 Senate run, McCain took $562,000 in contributions from the communications industry. . . . Before his next reelection campaign, he received $900,000 more, lagging only five senators among telecom beneficiaries. Between 1993 and 2000, McCain collected $685,929 from media companies, the most of any sitting member of Congress. What do these companies have in common? They all have interests before the Senate Commerce Committee, which McCain chaired at the time.
So: does McCain’s reputation as a campaign-finance reformer pass muster or not?
4) Taken-on faith
Obama’s lengthy history with Reverend Wright was his biggest weakness in the primary, a role it will probably reprise in the general election. But McCain has pastor problems of his own. During his 2000 presidential run, McCain thrilled liberals by calling Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson “agents of intolerance.” This time around, however, he’s cozied up to assorted figures on the religious right — including the late Falwell (McCain spoke at the commencement ceremonies of Liberty University, which Falwell founded, in 2006), Rod Parsley (an Ohio minister who’s urged the eradication of Islam, and whom McCain called a “spiritual guide” this past February), and John Hagee (a televangelist who, among other things, has called the Catholic Church the “Great Whore”). On the one hand, McCain has said that he doesn’t share all his endorsers’ views. On the other, he hasn’t condemned any of these individuals in the emphatic way that Obama eventually repudiated Wright. What does McCain actually think about the most problematic views of Falwell, Parsley, Hagee, et al.?
5) Hints of misogyny
In 1998, at a Republican fundraiser, McCain reportedly told this awful joke: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.” This past November, McCain chuckled when a South Carolina woman asked of Hillary Clinton: “How do we beat the bitch?” (After answering the question, he professed his respect for Clinton.) And according to The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn’t (PoliPoint), a new book by Cliff Schecter, McCain subjected his wife, Cindy, to a vulgar tirade, including a C-bomb, when she joked about his thinning hair in 1992. (Schechter cites three unnamed Arizona journalists; McCain has denied this account.) In addition, he recently opposed legislation that would guarantee women equal pay for equal work. What does McCain’s biography tell us about his interactions with, and views on, women?
6) Physically fit to serve?
While campaigning before the New Hampshire primary, McCain said he might serve only one term if elected. Saying he planned to serve two terms, he added, “might not be a vote-getter” due to his age. He may have been joking, but there’s an underlying truth here: between his senior-citizen status (McCain would be 72 when inaugurated, the oldest elected president of all time) and medical history (he had surgery for melanoma in 2000), there’s reason to wonder how long McCain would be physically fit to hold office. A March 2008 Times story noted that McCain’s doctors had released his medical records in 1999, but had delayed doing so this time around. If he continues to do so, should we be worried? And even if his doctors give him a clean bill of health, should his age give voters pause?
7) Plans for Iran
In early 2007, McCain spooked some voters by singing “Bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann” after a questioner used the phrase. Earlier this month — after ticking off a list of suspect Iranian attitudes and actions — he (more soberly) urged the creation of a “league of nations” that would keep Iran in check. The question of whether and how to engage Iran may be the biggest foreign-policy issue the next president faces. If his hypothetical, Wilsonian-retro “league of nations” didn’t succeed, might McCain consider unilateral US action against Iran? And would he, under any circumstances, consider an Iraq-style invasion of the country?
8) How important is global warming?
This past Monday, at a wind-turbine-manufacturing plant in Portland, Oregon, McCain reiterated his previously stated belief in global warming, urged the use of free-market mechanisms to combat it, and took an oblique swipe at the Bush administration’s inaction on the issue. This should appeal to moderate and liberal voters. But as Joseph Romm noted in a recent Salon article, McCain’s professed urgency on global warming conflicts with his avowed admiration for conservative judges in the mold of Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito — who, like their fellow conservatives Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, seem to question the reality of global warming itself. (“Avoiding catastrophic climate change will require sweeping legislation that covers every sector of the economy,” claims Romm. “A McCain-stacked court led by Chief Justice Roberts will rule against any ambiguous or incomplete laws regulating [greenhouse gas] emissions in the commercial, industrial, utility, residential, transportation, or agricultural sectors.”)
Would McCain allow his concern about global warming to supersede his fondness for conservative judges? And under what circumstances, if any, would he pursue solutions that violated free-market principles?
9) Pork or no pork?
Way back in December 1999, then–Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell hit McCain with this question: “Senator, how do you reconcile the fact that you are one of the most vocal critics of pork-barrel politics, and yet while you were chairman of the Commerce Committee, that committee set a record for unauthorized appropriations?” Unfortunately, before a panicked-looking McCain could answer, Carell turned it into a joke (“I’m just kidding! I don’t even know what that means!”). Now would be a good time to get an answer.
10) The “character” question
By all accounts, John McCain comported himself heroically as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. But despite presenting himself as a moral exemplar — among other things, by authoring in 2005 (with aide Mark Salter) Character Is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember (Random House) — McCain’s own behavior hasn’t always been praiseworthy.
One example: while McCain was in Vietnam, his first wife, former model Carol Shepp, was in a near-fatal car accident. According to a 2000 Times story, her injuries “left her four inches shorter and on crutches, and she had gained a good deal of weight.” A few years later, McCain divorced Carol and married his current wife, Cindy, a wealthy, attractive beer-distribution heiress 17 years his junior. There are caveats here: McCain was a former POW, relations with his ex and their children seem amicable today, marital faithfulness is not necessarily an indicator of presidential greatness. Still, this episode complicates the McCain Myth.
Another example: in 2000, McCain said of his Vietnamese captors, “I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” McCain eventually apologized, but seemed to have considerable difficulty understanding that Asian-Americans respond to “gook” in much the same way that African-Americans respond to “nigger.” There’s a wide body of lore describing McCain’s temper, too, which the Arizona Republic, a paper that repeatedly endorsed McCain’s congressional bids, described in a 1999 editorial as “volcanic.”
People everywhere see their marriages split up, and say things they later regret, and become angrier than they should. But most of them don’t pursue moral and ethical instruction as a sideline. McCain has — and, in the process, he’s invited scrutiny of his own character.
Some of these stories may already be in the works; others may have been deemed beyond the pale. But remember: the political press has already explored (among other things) the sleeping habits of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Obama’s ties to former Weatherman Bill Ayers. We have, in short, embraced an expansive criterion when it comes to coverage: if a given subject tells us anything about what kind of president a candidate might be, it’s fair game. That’s how it’s been for the Democrats, anyway. McCain ought to be treated the same way.
Adam Reilly's Media Log:
http://www.thephoenix.com/medialog
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