The Centretarian

Thad Cochran Was Right

JULY 31, 2008 8:39

Hope Dashed (Again)

Posted by Joe Klein | Comments (69) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong. I used to think, as David Ignatius does, that McCain's true voice was humble and moderate, but now I'm beginning to think his Senate colleagues may be right about his temperament. From what I can gather, Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican, reflected the views of many of his colleagues earlier this year when he said:

"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine...He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

The erratic nature of McCain's campaign seems to be confirming that judgment. The McCain I used to know would never have touted his own courage as he did a few weeks ago when he said:

"I had the courage and the judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war.It seems to me that Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign."

Courage is grace under pressure. McCain showed it when he was a prisoner of war, and on many issues--yes, even on his stubborn insistence that the surge would work--but he is not showing it now. He is showing flop sweat. It is not a quality usually associated with successful leadership.

Rabid Right McCain Attacks New York Times

WASHINGTON — It is a tradition at many kitchen tables to yell at the newspaper. At John McCain's kitchen table, it is becoming a tradition to yell at one paper in particular: The New York Times.

The latest dustup between the Republican presidential candidate and the "All the News that's fit to Print" big-name newspaper centered on the editorial board's back-to-back criticisms of McCain, one dispatch accusing him of taking the low road and another contending that he was playing politics with race.

The second editorial, which appeared on the Times Web site, said McCain's ads conjured up loaded racial images and raised the specter of O.J. Simpson.

"The presumptive Republican nominee has embarked on a bare-knuckled barrage of negative advertising aimed at belittling Mr. Obama," the editorial board wrote.

The response from the McCain campaign was equally cutting.

"If the shareholders of The New York Times ever wonder why the paper's ad revenue is plummeting and its share price tanking, they need look no further than the hysterical reaction of the paper's editors to any slight, real or imagined, against their preferred candidate," said McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb.

Goldfarb compared the editors to a blogger "sitting at home in his mother's basement and ranting into the ether between games of Dungeons & Dragons."

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis declined to comment on Friday.

The relationship between McCain _ a frequent reader of the newspaper _ and the Times has been rocky. Yet such a grudge could pay political dividends for the presidential candidate, as criticizing the liberal media often improves a candidate's standing with Republican Party conservatives. That's critical for McCain, who has never been their favorite.

Back in January, the Times endorsed McCain's candidacy for the Republican nomination, saying, "Sen. John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe."

Since then, it's been McCain v. The New York Times.

In February, the newspaper printed a story about McCain and a female lobbyist, reporting that unnamed McCain associates years ago had become concerned the relationship may have become romantic. Both McCain and the lobbyist have unequivocally denied that it was, and the newspaper's editor said he was surprised at the reaction to the story.

A month later, McCain flashed his temper at a Times reporter, repeatedly cutting her off when asked whether he had spoken to Democratic Sen. John Kerry about being his vice president in 2004.

Then last month, Republicans complained that the paper rejected an Op-Ed piece by McCain about the Iraq war after one by Obama was printed and received widespread attention. The paper said it had only tried to get McCain to rewrite the piece to be more specific about his plan.

"McCain is still, I think, upset about the Op-Ed not being printed," said Mike Paul, a former aide to New York Republicans who is now a consultant.

Paul said several recent moves by McCain show the presidential candidate is consciously moving away from his role as an unconventional politician.

"A lot of the maverick positioning is now turning into more conservative positioning, and some of that includes not being afraid to go negative, not being afraid to call a liberal a liberal, and not being afraid to go after a newspaper," said Paul.

Beyond any personal pique there may be, there is a strategy to attacking the Times because it is a bogeyman of conservatives who still may not be entirely sold on the Arizona senator.

Senior advisers are fully aware that assailing the Times could help endear McCain to his talk radio skeptics and their followers.

So, they go after the newspaper often _ and send the message: McCain stands with you.

Advisers also recognize the power of the newspaper to influence how other media organizations cover the campaign, so they are aggressive in pointing out where they feel McCain was wronged.

McCain, though, is hardly the first Republican to want to tear up the paper.

Back in 1992, aides to President George H.W. Bush complained that the Times and other media outlets had mischaracterized his examination of a grocery check-out scanner by suggesting he was unfamiliar with the long-used technology and implying he was out of touch with everyday Americans' economic issues.

In the 2004 election, a conservative anti-tax group called Club for Growth ran an ad decrying Democrat Howard Dean as a "latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading" tax-raiser.

"It's not complicated," said Club for Growth spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik. The paper, she said, "has really become a symbol for a lot of conservative grievances."

"For starters, their editorials are decidedly liberal. That's a no-brainer. And there are often complaints that even their general reporting is biased in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. The New York Times has come to be associated with the Northeast liberal establishment."

Paul, the consultant, said he thinks the McCain campaign's criticisms of the paper may look good to some but won't work in the long run.

"You might get that base, but you won't win the election," he said. "It goes back to the old saying, 'Don't throw rocks at people who own ink barrels' ... and people have gotten sick and tired of the excuse that all media is liberal."

Please wait, your request is processed.McCain and N.Y. Ti WASHINGTON — It is a tradition at many kitchen tables to yell at the newspaper. At John McCain's kitchen table, it is becoming a tradition to yell at one paper in particular: The New York Tim

The Rabid Right Must Distract To Win

The rabid right will say and do anything to keep their very rich contributors in power. They win by distracting people from the life and death issues. If they can make people afraid fear will hijack the mind and people will not think. If they can trick people again into thinking that hot button issues about gays and abortion and guns are all that matter people will not look carefully at what the GOP has done to this country in the last 7 years. Like Goebbels they will tell any lie because if you are going to lie they may as well be whoppers. The will launch one Rovian ad after another to distract from an exploration of the issues.

However, they would not be succeeding if Obama were not failing in taking the path of attack on what the GOP has done to our nation. His mild temperament may elect McCain and perpetuate the rabit right hold on power. In spite of a great trip abroad he has let himself get on the defensive. It may well be the wimpy democtrats will have nominated a man without the passion needed for the fight ahead.

Obama needs to attack, attack, attack and then take one breath and attack again. If he cannot do it he needs a VP who will be his Nixon.

Liberals Overestimate the Intelligence of the Voter

The United States is in big trouble with a malignant economy increasing human suffering and two wars sapping our blood and resources. We need an issue based campaign that will allow us to test ideas. Instead the Rove people in the McCain camp are repeating the tactics of 2000 and 2004. There is a difference and that is the nastiness is coning directly from straight talking McCain. He is a joke. His pretensions in the past are now laughable. I would prefer to keep Bush. McCain is vicious, dangerous and borderline senile. He is running the worst campaign in my lifetime. He may the biggest liar of all the Pols I have seen in the last 60 plus years. But can these Rove methods work once again? Are the American people so stupid they would elect this stand in for Bush after all the GOP and Bush-McCain have done to our country? I fear the answer may be yes.

It can work only because the mass media represents a failed institution. Mass media is increasingly under control of larger corporations and media monopolies who need the rabid right to stay in power to protect their interests. While this has been happening we have experienced the death of professionalism in journalism. In the early days of television those presenting news were real journalists with experience in the discipline of writing. Writing served to  sharpen their analytic skills. Now the typical talking head in mass media are people with much more in common with actors and actresses. They are self consumed and interested more in putting on a good show and getting ratings than in informing citizens of contributing to the welfare of the republic. We now have a class of people called pundits who seem to be selected because they are biased and their biases are entertaining.

The negative ads have no influence on intelligent voters except to make them disgusted or as a dose of humor. So why do they work? Next time you are in a check out line at the grocery store check out the sensational newspapers and magazines. The people who are influenced are the kind of people who would buy those rags. Go to a sports bar. The guffaws over bathroom jokes and anything that makes fun of women or people who think much should tell you a lot. A room full of Archie Bunkers of various ages. They mistrust education and are quite incapable of voting their self interests. They are not really capable of analytic thinking and are the targets of the kind of Pavlovian ads designed to lead to salivation and mindless responses. There are apparently enough stupid people out there to once again sell out America as was done in 2000 and 2004.

Liberals have failed for the last 30 years (Clinton was a Republicrat) because their view of humans is rather elevated. They are capable of being talked up to rather than down to. They can think and surely would not respond to something like a Willie Horton ad. People are smarter then that right? On the other hand, since Nixon decided to surround himself with advertising men and PR hacks the GOP has followed the methods of manipulation pioneered by Joseph Goebbels. People are really rather stupid and should be manipulated by any method that works. Who is right? It looks more and more as though it is really foolish in American politics to overestimate the voter.

McCain Will Be Worse Than Bush

 It is increasingly obvious that the 'maverick' McCain was nothing but a con job. Not straight talk, crooked talk. While he needed to take a few bows to the rabid troglodytes of the GOP right, he has gone way beyond that and has proven he is just another Bush-Cheney Neo-conzie. His voting record in the senate has been 95% Bush. That is not a maverick, that is just another flunky.

While Cheney and Rumsfeld were nasty Bush himself has aways seemed an amiable type who left the dirty work to others. Not so for McCain, in the last week he has proven to be the most mean spirited man who has run for the office. He will with his approach freeze the polarization created by Rove and other Bush handlers. Thus, were he to win, he will find it very hard to govern.

McCain is actually more conservative than Bush. He is more of a war monger. Bush seemed genuinely troubled by having to be at war. McCain talks about the troops but has repeatedly shown his indifference. He is a lot like Patton--cold and blood thirsty. Bush has been more the reluctant Omar Bradly. You fight a war because it must be done not because you like it.

While Cheney and Rumsfeld had too much influence it has become clear since they left and Gates and Rice have risen the greater clout that is was not so much Bush as it was his bad advisers. In McCain we have all three in one. Like Bush he is not very clever and his sloppy use of language reflects sloppy thinking. He has the authoritarianism of Cheney and the militarism of Rumsfeld.

Even his senate collgues are concerned about his temper. His miltary career was marked by wrecklessness. John McCain is too stupid, too arrogant and too unstable to be president.

Will We be Apes Again?

Moratorium is over. The watchdog is back. It now appears that unless America once again releases a lone assassin from its cultural cesspool who will end this latest threat to the control of the Rabid Right and its troglodytes  that Obama will run against McCain for president. At this point we seem to be headed for another close election which will mean we will remain unable to address the domestic and foreign policy catastrophe that Bush-McCain will have left us. The democrats may prove useless. We need a victory for the idea of America and a return to a constitutional republic. How can it be that in a year when it should be clear, even to a fool, that the GOP has led us to a catastrophe that half of the American electorate will vote the keep them in office?

The Republicans are dangerous but the democrats are useless and incompetent. Worse, they are cowards unable or unwilling to hold Bush-Chaney-McCain accountable for what they have done to this country. While the right is driven by firm values the democrats seem to have no rudder. In the event that the threats to America become more of an issue the voters will not pick a weak and cowardly party to lead. Apes tend to follow the ape who makes the most noise and displays aggression most convincingly and the twice election of Bush suggests there is a lot of ape behavior and too little thought when people vote.

Is Bush really responsible for all this? No. The American people are responsible and Bush was only their agent. Americans began the decline into an imperial power in the McKinley-TR period. There were some heroes who risked all to oppose it. The best of all was Mark Twain. But he was vilified at the time. And so a nation built on genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of blacks began the move to imperial power that saw complete fulfillment in 2003 with violation of the Constitution and a pre-emptive war to seize oil so Americans could avoid the pain of conservation and keep their Hummers and SUVs.

America works only if the voters are educated about their heritage as the greatest nation ever conceived and are capable of critical thinking. If people vote as they did in 2004 out of fear or for a man they want to have a beer with rather than for the brightest man with a capacity for good judgment then again this year they will follow the instinct of their ape fore-bearers and vote for the one with the best display and bluster. They will vote for the man who will appeal to their killer side and send us into war with Iran. The catastrophe will grow and more of our children will die.

If Jung is right we can only overcome our dark side if we recognize it as part of reality. The Jingoististic approach to patriotism requires that we reject any nagatives. There are enough bigots out there to elect John McCain. Will one of them kill him?

Edsall Says It may Not be Over

Maybe there is an outside chance that between now and the last week of August a critical mass will decide that Barack Obama is not their guy -- that, to the surprise of one and all, Hillary Rodham Clinton is to be the 2008 nominee after all.

That is the thinking behind a small but determined band of Hillary backers, some of whom have formed a 527 fundraising committee that has already run one $9,700 ad in the Chicago Tribune, and plans more in the weeks to come.

The Denver Group: Keeping the Democratic Party democratic, created by Georgetown Law professor Heidi Li Feldman and freelance advertising man Marc Rubin, ran an ad in Friday's Chicago Tribune declaring:

"Senator Clinton's name must be put in nomination. Her supporters must be allowed to make speeches on her behalf of her candidacy. There must be an honest roll call vote, not a symbolic one, so superdelegates can cast their votes honestly, for either candidate, as their judgment, conscience and democratic principles dictate."

Feldman told the Huffington Post that the goal of the Denver Group "is to insure substantive and legitimate selection of the nominee." DNC chairman and other party leaders "should be taking responsibility for making sure it's a legitimate procedure. They cannot demand that people simply unify around either one of them."

Feldman argued that it is entirely conceivable that an open vote could produce a Clinton victory. "Then, the decision comes down to the superdelegates. I have no Idea what they are going to do six weeks from now."

Feldman declined to say how much the group has raised, or who the donors are - "We can't disclose that information" - although he acknowledged that the 527 organization will soon have to report that data to the IRS. She said the largest donation so far is $5,000.

The Denver Group is not committed to any candidate, Feldman said, although the organization's web site, and the links provided at the site, suggest a decisive tilt toward Clinton and, in some cases, intense animosity to Obama.

Rubin, for example, writes not only on the Denver Group site, but also on Tom In Paine. There, the lead piece by Rubin is titled "The New Obama, The New Nixon and The Same Old New York Times." Rubin writes, "The analogy of Obama to Nixon is valid from many different points of view since a case can be made that Obama is the most underhanded and dishonest politician since Nixon."

Spokesfolk for the Obama campaign declined to comment on the Denver Group. It should not be confused with "Unconventional Denver," a separate anarchist organization pledged to disrupt activities at the Democratic convention. "We don't want history to remember the Democratic National Convention in Denver as something that went smoothly," Tim Simons of Unconventional Denver told the Denver Post, "We want people to know there was dissent and people spoke up."

One Third Are Bigots

3 in 10 Americans Admit to Race Bias

Survey Shows Age, Too, May Affect Election Views

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By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta

Washington Post Staff Writers 
Sunday, June 22, 2008; Page A01

As Sen. Barack Obama opens his campaign as the first African American on a major party presidential ticket, nearly half of all Americans say race relations in the country are in bad shape and three in 10 acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

THIS STORY

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• Washington Post-ABC News Poll
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Lingering racial bias affects the public's assessments of the Democrat from Illinois, but offsetting advantages and Sen. John McCain's age could be bigger factors in determining the next occupant of the White House.

Overall, 51 percent call the current state of race relations "excellent" or "good," about the same as said so five years ago. That is a relative thaw from more negative ratings in the 1990s, but the gap between whites and blacks on the issue is now the widest it has been in polls dating to early 1992.

More than six in 10 African Americans now rate race relations as "not so good" or "poor," while 53 percent of whites hold more positive views. Opinions are also divided along racial lines, though less so, on whether blacks face discrimination. There is more similarity on feelings of personal racial prejudice: Thirty percent of whites and 34 percent of blacks admit such sentiments.

At the same time, there is an overwhelming public openness to the idea of electing an African American to the presidency. In a Post-ABC News poll last month, nearly nine in 10 whites said they would be comfortable with a black president. While fewer whites, about two-thirds, said they would be "entirely comfortable" with it, that was more than double the percentage of all adults who said they would be so at ease with someone entering office for the first time at age 72, which McCain (R-Ariz.) would do should he prevail in November.

Even so, just over half of whites in the new poll called Obama a "risky" choice for the White House, while two-thirds said McCain is a "safe" pick. Forty-three percent of whites said Obama has sufficient experience to serve effectively as president, and about two in 10 worry he would overrepresent the interests of African Americans.

Obama will be forced to confront these views as he seeks to broaden his appeal. He leads in the Post-ABC poll by six percentage points among all adults, but among those who are most likely to vote, the contest is a tossup, with McCain at 48 percent and Obama at 47 percent.

His campaign advisers hope race may prove a benefit, that heightened enthusiasm among African Americans will make Obama competitive in GOP-leaning states with large black populations. But to win in November, Obama most likely will have to close what is now a 12-point deficit among whites. (Whites made up 77 percent of all voters in 2004; blacks were 11 percent, according to network exit polls.)

This is hardly the first time a Democratic candidate has faced such a challenge -- Al Gore lost white voters by 12 points in 2000, and John F. Kerry lost them by 17 points in 2004 -- but it is a significantly larger shortfall than Jimmy Carter or Bill Clintonencountered in their winning campaigns.

Many think Obama has the potential to transform current racial politics. Nearly six in 10 believe his candidacy will shake up the racial status quo, for better or worse. And by nearly 3 to 1, those who think Obama's candidacy will affect race relations said it will have a positive impact. (Four in 10 said it probably will not make much of a difference.)

African Americans are much more optimistic than whites on this score: Sixty percent said Obama's candidacy will do more to help race relations, compared with 38 percent of whites. Two-thirds of those supporting him for president think it will improve the situation.

But sorting out the impact of these and other racial attitudes on the presidential election is not straightforward.

About a fifth of whites said a candidate's race is important in determining their vote, but Obama does no worse among those who said so than among those who called it a small factor or no factor.

Nor are whites who said they have at least some feelings of racial prejudice more or less apt to support Obama than those who profess no such feelings.

Putting several measures together into a "racial sensitivity index" reveals that these attitudes have a significant impact on vote preferences, independent of partisan identification. Combining answers to questions about racist feelings, perceptions of discrimination and whether the respondent has a close personal friend of another race into a three-part scale shows the importance of underlying racial attitudes.

Whites in the top sensitivity group broke for Obama by nearly 20 percentage points, while those in the lowest of the three categories went for McCain by almost 2 to 1.

A similar pattern holds among Democrats. Obama scores more than 20 points better among nonblack Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents in the "high" group than he does among those in the "low" group.

Obama has some convincing to do among the 29 percent of whites who fall into the scale's lowest category. (Twenty-one percent were in the top grouping, 50 percent in the middle.) Almost six in 10 whites in the low-sensitivity group see him as a risky choice, and a similar percentage said they know little or nothing about where he stands on specific issues. Nearly half do not think his candidacy will alter race relations in the country; 20 percent think it will probably make race relations worse.

But McCain's challenges are also an important part of the equation.

Numerous polls, for example, have indicated that McCain's age may be a bigger detractor than Obama's race. And more are now concerned that McCain will heed too closely the interests of large corporations than said so about Obama and the interests of blacks.

The poll was conducted by telephone June 12 through June 15 among a national random sample of 1,125 adults. The results from the full poll have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. The error margin is larger for subgroups; it is four points among whites and seven points among African Americans.

Assistant polling analyst Kyle Dropp contributed to this report.

Sam Stein of Huffington Post

One of the principal authors of the most significant campaign finance legislation since Watergate said he was neither "outraged" nor "surprised" with Barack Obama's decision to forgo public funding in the general election.Norm Ornstein, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and substantial contributor to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act -- also known as the "McCain-Feingold" campaign finance legislation -- said on Thursday that Obama's move was "pragmatically the right decision to make," and that, if the Senator had not chosen that path, "I would have sued him for political malpractice."

"What I told a bunch of people a few weeks ago," said Ornstein, "is that while it would be nice if he decided he felt honor bound to stay within the system and take the money, if he did so I might join a group of people who sued him for political malpractice. When you have the ability to raise the kind of money that he could raise and do it without selling your soul to spend all the time between now and the election on fundraisers, your goal is to win an election and not turn your back on the people voting. There will be outraged editorials and McCain will be justifiably pissed. But it was pragmatically the right decision for him to make."

Orstein told The Huffington Post that he had advised the Obama campaign about the issue of public finance a "long time ago" but not as the decision approached. "I don't think it was a slam dunk decision six months ago, in part because people didn't have any idea what kind of reach he could have, how many people he could bring into his camp."

In defending Obama, Orstein became the sole author of McCain-Feingold to offer sympathy for a position that, at least in the spirit, goes against the purpose of the campaign finance legislation. McCain, unsurprisingly, called Obama's pronouncement "a big deal."

"He has completely reversed himself and gone back, not on his word to me, but the commitment he made to the American people," said the Senator.

While Feingold, a stalwart champion of public funds, expressed a slightly less outraged sense of disappointment.

"This is not a good decision," said the Wisconsin Democrat. "While the current public financing system for the presidential primaries is broken, the system for the general election is not. The entire system must be updated."

Jeffrey Klein: The Man versus The Myth

"At a meeting in his Pentagon office in early 1981, Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman told Capt. John S. McCain III that he was about to attain his life ambition: becoming an admiral.... Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral's star to make a run for Congress, saying that he could 'do more good there,' Mr. Lehman recalled." So claimed the New York Times in a front-page article on May 29 this year.

This story is highly improbable for several reasons, not least of all because John McCain himself has always told a very different story about his stalled naval career. For example, on page 9 of his memoir Worth The Fighting For, McCain writes:

"Several months before my father died, I informed him that I was leaving the navy. I am sure he had gotten word of my decision from friends in the Pentagon. I had been summoned to see the CNO, Admiral Heyward, who told me I was making a mistake.... His attempt to dissuade me encouraged me to believe that I might have made admiral had I remained in the navy, a prospect that remained an open question in my mind.... Some of my navy friends believed I could earn my star; others doubted it.... When I told my father of my intention, he did not remonstrate me.... But I knew him well enough to know that he was disappointed. For when I left him that day, alone in his study, I took with me his hope that I might someday become the first son and grandson of four-star admirals to achieve the same distinction. That aspiration was well beyond my reach by the time I made my decision...."

McCain's father died on March 22, 1981. McCain retired from the Navy within a week. He wrote about his retirement soon thereafter. McCain never mentioned the alleged offer of an admiralship by Lehman in any of his books, nor in the numerous interviews McCain gave during his first run for the presidency in 1999-2000.

Furthermore, articles written during the current presidential campaign quote McCain's closest friends about McCain's failure to be promoted to admiral before he retired from the Navy. For example, in an April 26, 2008, National Journal cover story, William Cohen (then a Senator, subsequently Secretary of Defense and the best man at McCain's second wedding) recounts that McCain "knew his career in the Navy was limited." Former Senator Gary Hart, who served as a groomsman at McCain's 1980 wedding, says in the National Journal story that he had been told "that [McCain] was not going to receive a star and not going to become an admiral. I think that was the deciding point for him to retire from the Navy."

John Lehman doesn't figure in any accounts of McCain's naval career, probably because Lehman was appointed Secretary of the Navy less than two months before McCain retired. The New York Times didn't note this, or the pertinent fact that John Lehman is currently serving as National Security Adviser to McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Two admirals in the Timesstory confirmed Lehman's claim, but for unknown reasons the Times, in violation of its own guidelines, accorded them off-the-record status that makes it impossible to assess their motives and credibility.

The New York Times' front-page story about McCain declining promotion to admiral lacks credibility for other reasons as well. For example, McCain had been promoted to captain on August 1, 1979, so he wouldn't have been due for another promotion by March of 1981.

Retired Admiral Peter Booth, who was promoted to rear admiral in 1981, flatly disputes Lehman's claim about McCain. "No, John McCain was not selected for flag rank, for admiral. With all due respect, I think I was selected that same year, and I have never heard anything even remotely like that. To begin with, John Lehman did not select Navy flag officers. That was done with a very august selection board headed by a four-star admiral. The Secretary of the Navy does not appoint. He is in the approval chain, but he is not on the committee.

"I have never heard a story, even remotely, that John McCain was going to be a flag officer. I was early selected for captain, in 1976, and I was regular selected for admiral in 1981. So it's probably five or six years, I guess. I've never heard of anybody being selected for flag rank within three or four years of making captain, ever."

Retired Admiral John R. Batzler, former commanding officer of the U.S.S. Nimitz, also promoted to rear admiral in 1981, agrees with Retired Admiral Booth. "I made rear admiral in about five years. I wasn't selected early, and I wasn't selected late. I find it incredible that someone made that statement that John Lehman told John McCain he was going to be promoted to admiral two years after he made captain. First of all, telling him at all is not kosher, but we all know the Secretary of the Navy does what he damn well pleases, in particular John Lehman. This whole idea that John Lehman told John McCain he was going to be promoted to flag two years after he made captain sounds preposterous to me." All of the evidence, indications and comments that the New York Timespublished a flattering lie about McCain's career on its front page are easy for John McCain to refute. All he needs to do is sign Standard Form 180, which authorizes the Navy to send an undeleted copy of McCain's naval file to news organizations. A long paper trail about McCain's pending promotion to admiral would be prominent in his file. To date, McCain's advisers have released snippets from his file, but under constrained viewing circumstances. There's no reason McCain's full file shouldn't be released immediately. In June 2005, seven months after he lost his bid for president, Senator John Kerry signed the 180 waiver, authorizing the release of his complete military service record to the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press. ** Unlike Kerry, McCain shouldn't wait until after the election to do so. The Navy may claim that it already released McCain's record to the Associated Press on May 7, 2008 in response to the AP's Freedom of Information Act request. But the McCain file the Navy released contained 19 pages -- a two-page overview and 17 pages detailing Awards and Decorations. Each of these 17 pages is stamped with a number. These numbers range from 0069 to 0636. When arranged in ascending order, they precisely track the chronology of McCain's career. It seems reasonable to ask the Navy whether there are at least 636 pages in McCain's file, of which 617 weren't released to the Associated Press.

Some of the unreleased pages in McCain's Navy file may not reflect well upon his qualifications for the presidency. From day one in the Navy, McCain screwed-up again and again, only to be forgiven because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals. McCain's sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush's.

Despite graduating in the bottom 1 percent of his Annapolis class, McCain was offered the most sought-after Navy assignment -- to become an aircraft carrier pilot. According to military historian John Karaagac, "'the Airdales,' the air wing of the Navy, acted and still do, as if unrivaled atop the naval pyramid. They acted as if they owned, not only the Navy, but the entire swath of blue water on the earth's surface." The most accomplished midshipmen compete furiously for the few carrier pilot openings. After four abysmal academic years at Annapolis distinguished only by his misdeeds and malfeasance, no one with a record resembling McCain's would have been offered such a prized career path. The justification for this and subsequent plum assignments should be documented in McCain's naval file.

McCain's file should also include records and analytic reviews of McCain's subsequent sub-par performances. Here are a few cited in two highly favorable biographies, both titled John McCain, one by Robert Timberg and the other by John Karaagac.

Timberg:

"[A]fter a European fling with the tobacco heiress, John McCain reported to flight school at Pensacola in August 1958.... [H]is performance was below par, at best good enough to get by. He liked flying, but didn't love it. What he loved was the kick-the-tire, start-the-fire, scarf-in-the-wind life of a naval aviator. ...One Saturday morning, as McCain was practicing landings, his engine quit and his plane plunged into Corpus Christi. Knocked unconscious by the impact, he came to as the plane settled to the bottom....McCain was an adequate pilot, but he had no patience for studying dry aviation manuals.... His professional growth, though reasonably steady, had its troubled moments. Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines, which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral.... [In 1965] he flew a trainer solo to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy game. Flying by way of Norfolk, he had just begun his descent over unpopulated tidal terrain when the engine died. 'I've got a flameout,' he radioed. He went through the standard relight procedures three times. At one thousand feet he ejected, landing on the deserted beach moments before the plane slammed into a clump of trees."

Adds Karaagac:

"In his memoir, everything becomes a kind of game of adolescent brinksmanship, how much can one press the limits of the acceptable and elude the powers that be....The [fighter jocks'] ethos of exaggerated, almost aggressive sociability becomes an end in itself and an excuse for license. There is a tendency for people, not simply to believe their own mythology but, indeed, to exaggerate it.... Fighter jocks, like politicians around their campaign contributions, often press the limits of the acceptable. It is a type of mild corruption that takes place in a highly privileged atmosphere, where restraints are loosened and excuses made....McCain gives some hint in his memoirs about where he stood in the hierarchy among carrier flyers. Instead of the sleek and newer Phantoms and Crusaders, McCain flew the dependable Douglas A-4 Skyhawk in an attack, not a fighter squadron. He was thus on the lower end of the flying totem pole."

The genius of McCain's mythmaking is his perceived humility amid perpetual defiance. Having been a rebel without cause, and often a rebel without consequences, McCain apparently was not surprised when his Vietnamese captors went relatively easy on him compared to his fellow POWs. The Vietnamese military secretly and frequently filmed the American POWs to learn their propensities. Col. Pham Van Hoa of the Vietnamese People's Army Film Department was in charge of the filming. Asked recently for his dominant impression of McCain, the now-retired Van Hoa said that McCain "seemed superior to other prisoners." How so? "Superior in attitude towards them."

But when Mark Salter, McCain's closest aide and co-author, was asked by the Arizona New Timesabout the first McCain memoir, Faith of My Fathers, that he was then working on, Salter said "the book will showcase a humble McCain. When I worked on this book with him, he just kept saying, 'Other guys had it a lot worse. I think they took it easier on me because of who my dad was. . . . When they tied me in ropes, they'd roll my sleeve up to give it a little padding between the rope and my bicep, you know, little things I noticed. The only really hard time I had was when I didn't go home, and then it only lasted a week, and sometimes I felt braver, I felt I could get away with more.'"

Is McCain now getting away with more by hiding his official history and by having his national security adviser inflate McCain's resume with a bogus promotion to admiral humbly declined? If so, McCain may be attempting to hide why the Navy was in fact slow to promote him upwards despite his suffering as a POW and his distinguished naval heritage.

One possible reason: After McCain had returned from Vietnam as a war hero and was physically rehabilitated, he was urged by his medical caretakers and military colleagues never to fly again. But McCain insisted on going up. As Carl Bernstein reported in Vanity Fair, he piloted an ultra-light, single propeller plane -- and crashed another time. His fifth loss of a plane has vanished from public records, but should be a subject of discussion in his Navy file. It wouldn't be surprising if his naval superiors worried that McCain was just too defiant, too reckless and too crash prone.

Regardless, McCain owes it to the country to release his complete naval records so that American voters can see his documented history and make an informed decision.