McCain: No Surrender!

For John McCain, critical inquiry stops at the water's edge.

Matt Welch from the December 2007 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

It turns out John McCain’s big foreign policy lesson from Vietnam was not about the seductive fallacy of the “domino theory” (which he was still espousing as late as 1973), or even the perils of the military draft during an unpopular war. The “consequence of failure” he suffered most then, and fears most now, is for the U.S. to lose faith in its might and its right.

“I am relieved today,” he wrote in Faith of My Fathers, “that America’s period of self-doubt has ended.”

In McCain’s world, learning from mistakes is not the path to success; victory is. No retreat, baby, no surrender.

Former Associate Editor Matt Welch is assistant editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times and the author of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick (Palgrave Macmillan).

Comments

dbust1|11.20.07 @ 2:21PM|#

I've never seen McCain as either a real candidate or a viable candidate. I think the party puts him out there to be both a cheerleader and a foil to those who never see anything positive in Iraq or ignore any facts about the war. So, I really don't care that he ignores lessons from history. He isn't going to the Republican candidate, ever.

|11.20.07 @ 2:35PM|#

It seems to me that what McCain wrote about Churchill and the Dardanelles, quoted by Welch, is more nuanced than what Welch wrote about that topic. And yet McCain is apparently the guy with the simpleminded black-and-white view of history.

If McCain is off base, so is the encyclopedia Encarta, among other sources:

Although the attack was one of the few brilliant strategic ideas of the war, Churchill's cabinet colleagues withdrew their support for the idea as soon as Britain met resistance, letting Churchill take the blame as scapegoat.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761556455_2/Winston_Churchill.html

|11.20.07 @ 4:53PM|#

It seems odd that one of Welch's criticisms was McCain's interest in putting the Vietnam war "behind us" and pushing for normalization of relations. It seems Welch is over eager to paint McCain as a war monger. Any time McCain does something libertarians might find sympathetic, it gets dismissed out of hand.

Matt Welch|11.20.07 @ 5:05PM|#

Michael -- I wouldn't characterize that as a "criticism" (in fact I praise it in my book, if not this piece). It's more that he has shown almost zero intellectual curiosity about whether we should have fought in Vietnam at all, focusing *instead* trying to get it behind us so that we can heal our wounds & go forth confidently into the world.

For a guy who wrestles very openly with a lot demons & policy decisions, he just doesn't spend much time re-thinking the implications of the decisions to go to war, aside from kicking himself (in Worth the Fighting For) for opposing Clinton in Bosnia. His main lesson from Vietnam is that we should have fought harder.

|11.21.07 @ 7:52AM|#

McCain is a dangerous hothead.I suggest you all read up on his father's role in covering-up the Israel bombing of the USS Liberty.Just like Oldman Mr. McClean, covering, lying for LBJ, we have now, Mr. Lump face McClean covering, lying for Jr. Bush.
This man is off his meds, lock'um up.

|11.21.07 @ 7:56PM|#

jojo,

That was as thrilling a butchery of written English as I've seen all day. And I have to read a public forum filled with gamers as part of my job. Congratulations to you, sir.

|11.21.07 @ 8:15PM|#

I also read gaming forums, mainly because I play Final Fantasy XI.

I agree Isildur, a Japanese teen could put together symantics better than that.

|11.22.07 @ 2:29AM|#

k isildur, dave. attack his point for punctuation. sry ever1 ain't great at everythin' like uze.

Do you know how he looks stupid to you for his English?

Well, that's how you look to me for an uneducated, bashing response that holds less of a thought than his post.

|11.22.07 @ 2:31AM|#

And btw, I don't agree with what he said.

Wow, see how easy that was without being a Simplistic.

|11.22.07 @ 2:51AM|#

Matt,

Well, you've piqued my interest. I haven't read your book yet, but now I think I will.