WWMVKD?

[elfs]

I've been thinking about the recent essays, especially David Broder's and Joe Klein's, about the way McCain, famously a high-stakes dice gambler, has risked everything on this run for the White House, and if he loses, he loses everything: his reputation as a maverick and as an honorable man.

I was reminded this morning of Mile Vorkosigan's observation that for those for whom the only maxim of life is "Death before Dishonor," eventually every man falls into one of two categories: the dead, and the foresworn.

John McCain isn't dead.

The other, and equally important observation, is Aral Vorkosigan's distinction between honor and reputation. The question we must ask ourselves is simple: is John McCain's reputation now dropping to match his honor, or is it being unfairly maligned? Aral acts as if the men and women with whom he works are rational and desire honor (and they frequently are: Gregor, Alys, Miles, Cordelia, even Ivan). But what if a man believes himself honorable even when he is not? Very few of Lois' characters are ever of two minds about anything; John McCain seems to be very much of two minds about himself.

Comments

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

If he loses he'll be remembered as an honourable man who did much good before succumbing to an unfortunate last stab at the Presidency when the country was in chaos, his party was crazy, and he was perhaps no longer himself due to age.

If he wins, his legacy will be what he does as President. Let us pray that his plan hatched during confinement to someday be President eventually matured to include plans past the last week of January.

[(Anonymous)]

If he actually took a serious shot at distancing himself from the crazies in his party (and God, do I ever wish more Republicans would), he might indeed be remembered that way. But his voting record, not to mention his abysmal campaign decisions, demonstrated that any "maverickness" he possessed ended as soon as it became politically inexpedient.

He became a huge victim of what I call "campaign zombification," in which a politician acts so cynically in pandering for votes that he no longer shows any signs of the qualities that might actually make him fit to lead. How many times have you heard a politician, after a failed bid, make an eloquent speech about a topic for which they have legitimate passion, and remarked, "Where was THIS [Al Gore/John Kerry/Mitt Romney] during the campaign??" That's what we're seeing with McCain, times a hundred.

Anonymous Blog Reader #127

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

To use a phrase that has been used, of necessity, far too often over the past eight years, Why Are We Even Discussing This?

John McCain is a lying sack of shit; and he has been a lying sack of shit for as long as he has been in politics.

Remember the Keating Five? The only reason McCain got anything resembling a pass was that, since he had been in Charles Keating's pocket from Day One, nothing resembling a quid pro quo could be established. The man's subsequent crusade for campaign finance reform is about as convincing and sincere a repentance as Jimmy Swaggart's.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Did you notice in recent speeches he's referred to his bill as the Feingold Campaign Reform Act?

Weren't there two names on that sponsor roll?

[fallenpegasus]

In re "lying sack of shit".

This is different from any other national politician.

This is different from his opposing candidate?

No, it is not.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

It's easy to be "rational and desire honor" when you're a fictional character.

I don't think McCain sees himself other then as a man that has to do what must be done so that in the end he is in a position to do what must be done. "The ends justify the means."

No man really views themselves as more evil then "I had to do this." (Well, except clinical sadists I suppose.)

Every person doing this has a justification/rationalization that says to them "This HAS to be done."

He probably doesn't WANT to do this. He thinks he HAS to.

[gwywnnydd.livejournal.com]

The commander of Kyril Island believed himself to be honorable.
His superiors disagreed with him.