Notorious Hothead McCain Now "Madder Than I've Ever Been"
Facing a surprisingly strong primary challenge from Tea Party darling J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Senator John McCain is now appealing to frothing-at-the-mouth Tea Baggers in the only language they understand: anger. But when McCain told Don Imus Friday that "I'm madder than I've ever been," that was really saying something. After all, with his explosive temper John McCain has been scaring the bejesus out of friends and foes - and even innocent bystanders - for decades.
On Friday, the supposed Maverick took to the airwaves to pander to the purveyors of right-wing rage. Fuming about the economy, McCain declared:
"There's not a lot of happy people out there, so you see tea parties, and you see people who are madder than they've ever been in their life. And frankly, I'm madder than I've ever been."
Of course, the prospect of John McCain bursting a blood vessel isn't a good thing for his health or ours.
During the 2008 GOP primaries, McCain's foe Mitt Romney famously circulated a memo ("The McCain Way: Attack Republicans - A Top 10 List") documenting episodes where McCain boiled over. But it's not just Democrats and his Republican presidential rivals who were horrified by the prospect of McCain's finger on the button.
Just ask Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn. While Cornyn ultimately endorsed McCain for the White House, in March 2007 he was on the receiving end of a McCain tantrum. Clashing over immigration policy, McCain dropped the F-bomb, saying to Cornyn:
"F**k you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room."
Cornyn was not alone among Senate Republicans in feeling the wrath of McCain. In 1999, McCain told the Finance Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM), "Only an a****** would put together a budget like this." On another occasion, he blasted the mild mannered Chuck Grassley (R-IA), " I'm calling you a f****** jerk."
Freshman Tennessee Senator Bob Corker also admitted he's "had his moments" with McCain and refused last year to answer the question whether he is"temperamentally suited to be President of the United States." Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran, who nonetheless endorsed McCain, aired his concerns:
"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."
As Election Day 2008 approached, McCain's dubious temperament worried some of his biggest allies. It took the meltdown on Wall Street that September for them to make their concerns public.
In a piece titled simply, "McCain Loses His Head," a horrified George Will made the case that McCain's out-of-control temper, festering personal grudges, "impulsive" reactions and "boiling moralism" constituted a worrisome "a harbinger of a McCain presidency":
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."
As it turns out, McCain's same "childish reflex" was on display 20 years ago during the last American financial crisis and the Keating Five imbroglio that almost ended his career.
While McCain was ultimately admonished by a Senate ethics panel only for "poor judgment" in the $3 billion collapse of Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan, his behavior in response to the white hot press spotlight then raised troubling questions about his fitness to lead now. As the Arizona Republic recalled in March 2007:
On Oct. 8, 1989, The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.
The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.
McCain also did not pay Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433.
When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself.
"You're a liar," McCain said when a Republic reporter asked him about the business relationship between his wife and Keating.
"That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot," McCain said later in the same conversation. "You do understand English, don't you?"
He also belittled reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.
"It's up to you to find that out, kids."
Ultimately, the paper ran the story. After it broke, McCain held a news conference with his rage in check and calmly answered questions for 90 minutes. (In a preview of the 2008 campaign, McCain's defense was that his wife's finances - and extreme wealth - were separate from his own.)
But McCain's response also revealed another disturbing pattern that continues to this day. After launching a furious tirade against the media, McCain sought to forgiveness after the fact. As the Boston Globe described the episode:
When reporters questioned the investment, John McCain wrote in his autobiography, he "shouted at them, cursed them, and eventually slammed the phone down on them. It was ridiculously immature behavior."
As it turned out, McCain used similar language to brush off his 1998 joke about the teenaged First Daughter, "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." As he told the New York Times' Maureen Dowd:
''This is the bad boy,'' he said in a phone interview. ''It was stupid and cruel and insensitive. I've apologized. I can't take it back. I could give you a whole bunch of excuses, but there are no excuses. I was wrong, but do you want me crucified? How many days does it need to be a story?''
Sadly for John McCain, as long as he remains in public life, his simmering temper will always be a story whethering he's battering political opponents, allies or even Vietnam POW/MIA activists. That's why Americans are rightly afraid when he sings "bomb bomb Iran" or rushes to conclude that "we are all Georgians" now.
During his first president run back in 1999, John McCain tried to defuse the growing concerns over his hot temper, insisting:
"Do I insult anybody or fly off the handle or anything like that? No, I don't."
Just five months later, a furious John McCain during a South Carolina debate refused to shake the hand of George W. Bush, the man whose campaign was savaging him there:
"Don't give me that shit," McCain growled, pulling away. "And take your hands off me."
For our sake if not his, let's hope that John McCain is not now even madder than that.
UPDATE: Almost on cue, Steve Benen reports on McCain's latest display of anger on the Senate floor, this time regarding health care.
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