One caveat before I post an excerpt from the story. Hirsh’s questions are crucial, but there’s one he missed: Does America even realize what they may be getting with McCain? After months of talking with voters, I suspect not. McCain’s record as a pragmatist is familiar–to the delight of many independents and the consternation of some conservatives. But his hotheaded reputation doesn’t reach much beyond the Beltway. Democrats are working hard to caricature McCain (unfairly, I think) as a bloodthirsty warmonger, and in some ways, the charges are similar. That said, war is a question of policy. A candidate’s temper is a question of character. So while the former is a turn-off to anti-war types, the latter has the potential to alienate anyone who thinks a fiery disposition is “unpresidential”–a much larger swath of the electorate. What would that take? Probably a YouTube clip (along the lines of “Bomb Iran”) showing McCain shouting at foreign diplomats or storming out of Senate meetings–both incidents described in Hirsh’s story. But until then, McCain’s temper will remain fodder for Beltway chatter and newsmagazine profiles, not kitchen-table conversations in Peoria–so I don’t see it having much influence on his campaign.
Anyway, here’s Hirsh:
Not surprisingly, after the speech last week at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, McCain’s campaign could not talk enough about international cooperation—what McCain had called a “new compact.” “He has such a deep relationship with so many Europeans and those in other regions, including Asia and the Middle East,” said one adviser, Rich Williamson, who added that McCain has kept up his global profile by “going each year to the Munich Security Conference.”
It was all very reassuring. There’s just one problem: John McCain doesn’t always behave according to his own statesmanlike script. In fact, while attending that same Munich conference in 2006, the Arizona senator had another one of what have come to be known as McCain Moments. In a small meeting at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, McCain was conferring with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister of Germany—one of America’s most important allies—when the others heard McCain erupt. He thought the German was being insufficiently tough on the brutal regime in Belarus. Raising his voice at Steinmeier—who’s known for speaking in unclear diplomatese—McCain “started shaking and rising out of his chair,” said one participant, a former senior diplomatic official who related the anecdote on condition of anonymity. “He said something like: ‘I haven’t come to Munich to hear this kind of crap’.” McCain’s old pal Joe Lieberman jumped in. “Lieberman, who reads him very well, put his hand on McCain’s arm and said gently, ‘John, I think there’s been a problem in the translation.’ Of course Lieberman doesn’t speak German and there hadn’t been any problem in the translation … It was just John’s explosive temper.”
…
McCain himself has long been aware of what he called, in his 2002 book “Worth the Fighting For,” his “legendary” temper. “I am combative, there is little use in pretending otherwise,” he wrote. While he insisted then that people tend to exaggerate his anger (most people with tempers say the same), he admitted that it “has caused me to make most of the more serious mistakes of my career.” But it is not just McCain’s anger that worries his detractors; it’s the fierce righteousness that is joined to it. During his first Senate run, in 1986, McCain grew so tired of hearing complaints about his anger that he thundered to his staffers (“as they struggled to keep straight faces,” recorded author Robert Timberg): “I don’t have a temper! I just care passionately.” The participant who witnessed McCain’s 2006 spat with Steinmeier agrees with this distinction. “He is, plain and simple, the most openly emotional politician in the United States,” he says. “Other people have had tempers. Eisenhower had a famous temper. Clinton has a temper. Reagan had a temper. But it’s that McCain is so emotional. He does jump to conclusions.” In the Senate, McCain is known for getting up and walking out if he doesn’t like what he’s hearing.
…
Which fights is he likely to pick as president? As a Vietnam veteran, tempered in the failure of that war, McCain has made many thoughtful and careful judgments about the use of force during his more than 20 years in the Senate. In 1983, as a congressman, he called for the withdrawal of the Marines from Beirut—defying a president he professed to admire, Ronald Reagan. He voted against intervention in Haiti and in favor of a cutoff of funds for the “Black Hawk Down” mission in Somalia. He was leery of a ground war against Iraq in 1991, though he ultimately voted for it. But since then, McCain has also shown a willingness to use force that suggests he has escaped from his Vietnam-bred caution.
