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John Sidney McCain III (born
August 29, 1936) is the senior
United States Senator from
Arizona and a candidate for the
Republican Party nomination in
the 2008 presidential
election.
Both McCain's grandfather and
father were Admirals in the
United States Navy. McCain also
attended the United States
Naval Academy and finished near
the bottom of his graduating
class in 1958. McCain became a
naval aviator flying attack
aircraft from carriers.
Participating in the Vietnam
War, he narrowly escaped death
during the 1967 Forrestal fire.
On his twenty-third bombing
mission over North Vietnam
later in 1967, he was shot down
and badly injured. He became a
prisoner of war. He endured
five and a half years of
captivity, including periods of
torture, before he was released
following the Paris Peace
Accords in 1973.
Retiring from the Navy in 1981
and moving to Arizona, McCain
soon entered politics. In 1982
he was elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives from
Arizona's 1st congressional
district. After serving two
terms there, he was elected to
the U.S. Senate from Arizona in
1986. He was subsequently
re-elected Senator in 1992,
1998, and 2004. While generally
an adherent to American
conservatism, McCain
established a reputation as a
political maverick for his
willingness to defy Republican
orthodoxy on several issues.
Surviving the Keating Five
scandal of the 1980s, he made
campaign finance reform one of
his signature concerns, which
eventually led to the passing
of the McCain-Feingold Act in
2002.
McCain was a candidate in the
2000 presidential election, but
was defeated by George W. Bush
for the Republican nomination
after closely contested battles
in several early primary
states. In the 2008
presidential election, he was
the nominal front-runner as the
cycle began, but suffered a
near collapse of his campaign
in mid-2007 due to financial
issues and his support for
comprehensive immigration
reform. He is attempting a
comeback as the 2008 primaries
begin.
 Early
life and military
career
McCain was born on August 29,
1936 in Panama at the Coco Solo
Air Base in the then
American-controlled Panama
Canal Zone to Admiral John S.
"Jack" McCain, Jr. and Roberta
(Wright) McCain. Both his
father and grandfather were
United States Navy admirals,
and were in fact the first
father-son pair to both achieve
four-star admiral rank. His
grandfather John S. "Slew"
McCain, Sr. was a pioneer of
aircraft carrier strategy who
commanded all carrier forces in
the Pacific Ocean theater of
World War II, led American
forces into epic actions such
as the Battle of Leyte Gulf,
and died four days after the
conclusion of the war. His
father was a submarine
commander during World War II
who won medals for heroism.
For the first ten years of his
life, McCain was frequently
uprooted as his family followed
his father to New London,
Connecticut, Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii and various other
stations in the Pacific Ocean;
McCain attended whatever naval
base school was available,
often to the detriment to his
education. After the attack on
Pearl Harbor in 1941, his
father was absent for long
stretches. As a child, John was
known for a quick temper and an
aggressive drive to compete and
prevail. After World War II was
over, his father stayed in the
Navy, sometimes working
political liaison posts; the
family settled in Northern
Virginia, and McCain attended
the educationally stronger St.
Stephen's School in Alexandria,
Virginia from 1946 to 1949.
Another two years was then
spent following his father
around to naval stations;
altogether he would go to about
twenty different schools during
his youth. He then attended
Episcopal High School in
Alexandria beginning in 1951;
it is a top private school with
a rigorous honor code. McCain
earned two varsity letters in
wrestling, where he excelled in
the lighter weight classes. He
had a continued reputation as a
fiery and contentious
personality and graduated from
high school in 1954.
Naval
training, early
assignments, marriage and
family
Following in the footsteps of
his father and grandfather,
McCain entered the United
States Naval Academy. McCain
was a rebellious midshipman and
his career at the Naval Academy
was ambivalent and lackluster.
He had his share of run-ins
with the faculty and
leadership; each year he was
given over 100 demerits (for
unshined shoes, formation
faults, talking out of place,
and the like), earning him
membership in the "Century
Club". He did not take well to
those of higher rank
arbitrarily wielding power of
him — "It was bullshit, and I
resented the hell out of it" —
and would sometimes intervene
when he saw it being done to
others. At 5 foot 7 inches and
127 pounds (1.70 m and 58 kg),
he competed as a lightweight
boxer for three years, where he
lacked skills but was fearless
and "didn't have a reverse
gear." He did well in a few
subjects that he was interested
in, such as English literature,
history and government. Despite
his low standing, he was a
leader among his fellow
midshipmen, especially in
organizing off-Yard activities;
one classmate said that "being
on liberty with John McCain was
like being in a train wreck."
Despite his difficulties, he
later wrote that he never
wavered in his desire to show
his father and family that he
was of the same mettle as his
naval forbears. Dropping out
was unthinkable and so he
successfully completed his
training and graduated from
Annapolis in 1958; he was fifth
from the bottom in class
rank.
Upon his graduation McCain was
commissioned an ensign, and
spent two and a half years as a
naval aviator in training at
Naval Air Station Pensacola in
Florida and Naval Air Station
Corpus Christi in Texas, flying
A-1 Skyraiders. He earned a
reputation as a party man, as
he drove a Corvette, dated an
exotic dancer named "Marie the
Flame of Florida", and, as he
would later say, "generally
misused my good health and
youth." During a practice run
in Corpus Christi, his aircraft
crashed into Corpus Christi
Bay, though he escaped without
major injuries; another time he
emerged intact from a collision
with power lines over Spain. He
was graduated from flight
school in 1960 and became a
naval pilot of attack
aircraft.
McCain was stationed on the
aircraft carriers USS Intrepid
and USS Enterprise, in the
Caribbean Sea. He was on alert
duty on Enterprise when it
imposed a blockade and
quarantine of Cuba during the
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. He
then returned to Pensacola
station, where he served as a
flight instructor at Naval Air
Station Meridian in
Mississippi, whose McCain Field
was named for his grandfather.
By 1964 he was in a
relationship with Carol Shepp,
a model originally from
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
they had known each other at
Annapolis and she had married
one of his classmates, but then
divorced. On July 3, 1965,
McCain married Shepp in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
McCain adopted her two children
Doug and Andy, who were five
and three years old at the
time; he and Carol then had a
daughter named Sidney in
September 1966.
McCain grew frustrated with his
training role and requested a
combat assignment. In December
1966 McCain was assigned to the
aircraft carrier USS Forrestal,
flying A-4 Skyhawks; his
service there began with tours
in the Mediterranean Sea and
Atlantic Ocean. During all this
time, McCain's father had risen
in the ranks, making rear
admiral in 1958 and vice
admiral in 1963;now in May 1967
his father was promoted to
four-star admiral and made
Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval
Forces, Europe, stationed in
London.
Vietnam
operations
In Spring 1967 Forrestal was
assigned to join Operation
Rolling Thunder, the bombing
campaign against North Vietnam
as part of the Vietnam War. The
alpha strikes flown from
Forrestal were against
specific, pre-selected
infrastructure targets such as
arms depots, factories, and
bridges; they were quite
dangerous due to the
Soviet-designed and supplied
anti-aircraft system fielded by
the North Vietnamese Air
Defense Force. McCain's first
five attack missions over North
Vietnam went without incident,
and while still unconcerned
with minor Navy regulations,
McCain had by now garnered the
reputation of a serious
aviator. But McCain and his
fellow pilots were already
frustrated by Rolling Thunder's
infamous micromanagement from
Washington; he would later
write that "The target list was
so restricted that we had to go
back and hit the same targets
over and over again.... Most of
our pilots flying the missions
believed that our targets were
virtually worthless. In all
candor, we thought our civilian
commanders were complete idiots
who didn’t have the least
notion of what it took to win
the war."
By now a Lieutenant Commander,
McCain was again almost killed
in action on July 29, 1967
while serving on the Forrestal,
operating at Yankee Station in
the Gulf of Tonkin. The crew
was preparing to launch attacks
when a Zuni rocket from an F-4
Phantom was accidentally fired
across the carrier's deck. The
rocket struck McCain's A-4E
Skyhawk as the jet was
preparing for launch. The
impact ruptured the Skyhawk's
fuel tank, which ignited the
fuel and knocked two bombs
loose. McCain escaped from his
jet by climbing out of the
cockpit, working himself to the
nose of the jet, and jumping
off its refueling probe onto
the burning deck of the
aircraft carrier. Ninety
seconds after the impact, one
of the bombs exploded
underneath his airplane. McCain
was struck in the legs and
chest by shrapnel. The ensuing
fire killed 132 sailors,
injured 62 others, destroyed at
least 20 aircraft, and took 24
hours to control. (This
incident, with flight deck
video, is still used in U.S.
Navy Recruit Training damage
control classes; the video has
been made available by McCain's
Presidential Exploratory
Committee.) A day or two after
the Forrestal incident, McCain
told New York Times reporter R.
W. Apple, Jr. in Saigon that,
"It's a difficult thing to say.
But now that I've seen what the
bombs and the napalm did to the
people on our ship, I'm not so
sure that I want to drop any
more of that stuff on North
Vietnam." But a change of
course was unlikely, as McCain
said, "I always wanted to be in
the Navy. I was born into it
and I never really considered
another profession. But I
always had trouble with the
regimentation."
As Forrestal headed for
repairs, McCain volunteered to
join the VA-163 Saints on board
the short-staffed USS Oriskany.
(Before McCain's arrival, on
October 26, 1966, a mishandled
flare caused a deck fire,
resulting in the deaths of 44
crew, including 24 pilots, and
the Oriskany underwent
significant repairs; the ship's
squadrons also suffered heavy
losses during Rolling Thunder,
with one-third of their pilots
killed or captured during
1967.) By late October 1967,
McCain had flown a total of 22
bombing missions.
Prisoner
of war
On October 26, 1967, McCain was
flying as part of a 20-plane
attack against a thermal power
plant in central Hanoi, a
heavily defended target area
that had previously been
off-limits to U.S. raids.
McCain's A-4 Skyhawk was shot
down during its approach run by
a Soviet-made SA-2
anti-aircraft missile. McCain
fractured both arms and a leg
in being hit and ejecting from
his plane. He nearly drowned
after he parachuted into Truc
Bach Lake in Hanoi. After he
regained consciousness, a mob
gathered around him, spat on
him, kicked him and stripped
him of his clothing. Others
crushed his shoulder with the
butt of a rifle and bayoneted
him in his left foot and
abdominal area; he was then
transported to Hanoi's main
prison. Although badly wounded,
his captors refused to put him
in the hospital, deciding he
would soon die anyway; they
beat and interrogated him, but
McCain only offered his name,
rank, serial number, and date
of birth. Only when the North
Vietnamese discovered that his
father was a top admiral did
they give him medical care and
announce his capture; at this
point, two days after it went
down, McCain's plane going
missing and his subsequent
appearance as a POW made the
front page of The New York
Times.
McCain spent six weeks in a
hospital, receiving marginal
care, was interviewed by a
French television reporter
whose report was carried on
CBS, and was observed by a
variety of North Vietnamese,
including the famous General Vo
Nguyen Giap, many of whom
assumed that he must be part of
America's
political-military-economic
elite. Now having lost 50
pounds, in a chest cast, and
with his hair turned white,
McCain was sent to a
prisoner-of-war camp in Hanoi
in December 1967, into a cell
with two other Americans who
did not expect him to live a
week (one was Bud Day, a future
Medal of Honor recipient); they
nursed McCain and kept him
alive. In March 1968, McCain
was put into solitary
confinement, where he would be
for two years. In July 1968,
McCain's father was named
Commander-in-Chief, Pacific
Command (CINCPAC), stationed in
Honolulu and commander of all
U.S. forces in the Vietnam
theater. McCain was immediately
offered a chance to return home
early: the North Vietnamese
wanted a mercy-showing
propaganda coup for the outside
world, and a message that only
privilege mattered that they
could use against the other
POWs. McCain turned down the
offer of repatriation due to
the Code of Conduct of "first
in, first out": he would only
accept the offer if every man
taken in before him was
released as well. McCain's
refusal to be released was even
remarked upon by North
Vietnamese officials to U.S.
envoy Averell Harriman at the
ongoing Paris Peace Talks.
In August 1968, a program of
vigorous torture methods began
on McCain, using rope bindings
into painful positions and
beatings every two hours, at
the same time as he was
suffering from dysentery. Teeth
and bones were broken again as
was McCain's spirit; the
beginnings of a suicide attempt
was stopped by guards. After
four days of this, McCain
signed an anti-American
propaganda "confession" that
said he was a "black criminal"
and an "air pirate", although
he used stilted Communist
jargon and ungrammatical
language to signal the
statement was forced. He would
later write, "I had learned
what we all learned over there:
Every man has his breaking
point. I had reached mine." His
injuries to this day have left
him incapable of raising his
arms above his head. His
captors tried to force him to
sign a second statement, and
this time he refused. He
received two to three beatings
per week because of his
continued refusal. Other
American POWs were similarly
tortured and maltreated in
order to extract "confessions".
On one occasion when McCain was
physically coerced to give the
names of members of his
squadron, he supplied them the
names of the Green Bay Packers'
offensive line. One another
occasion, a guard
surreptitiously loosened
McCain's painful rope bindings
for a night; when he later saw
McCain on Christmas Day, he
stood next to McCain and
silently drew a cross in the
dirt with his foot (decades
later, McCain would relate this
Good Samaritan story during his
presidential campaigns, as a
testiment to faith and
humanity). McCain refused to
meet with various anti-war
peace groups coming to Hanoi,
such as those led by David
Dellinger, Tom Hayden, and
Rennie Davis, not wanting to
give either them or the North
Vietnamese a propaganda victory
based on his connection to his
father.
In October 1969, treatment of
McCain and the other POWs
suddenly improved, after a
badly beaten and weakened POW
who had been released that
summer disclosed to the world
press the conditions to which
they were being subjected. In
December 1969, McCain was
transferred to Hoa Loa Prison,
which later became famous via
its POW nickname of the "Hanoi
Hilton". McCain continued to
refuse to see anti-war groups
or journalists sympathetic to
the North Vietnamese regime; to
one visitor who did speak with
him, McCain later wrote, "I
told him I had no remorse about
what I did, and that I would do
it over again if the same
opportunity presented itself."
McCain and other prisoners were
moved around to different camps
at times, but conditions over
the next several years were
generally more tolerable than
they had been before.
Altogether McCain was held as a
prisoner of war in North
Vietnam for five and a half
years. The Paris Peace Accords
were signed on January 27,
1973, ending direct U.S.
involvement in the war, but
arrangements for POWs took
longer; McCain was finally
released from captivity on
March 15, 1973, having been a
POW for almost an extra five
years due to his refusal to
accept the out-of-sequence
repatriation offer.
Return to
United States
Upon his return to the United
States, McCain was reunited
with his wife Carol, who had
suffered her own crippling,
near-death ordeal during his
captivity, due to an automobile
accident in December 1969 that
left her facing months of
operations and physical
therapy; by the time he saw her
again she was four inches
shorter, on crutches, and
substantially heavier. As a
returned POW, McCain became a
celebrity of sorts: The New
York Times ran a photo of him
getting off the plane at Clark
Air Base in the Philippines; he
published a long cover story
describing his ordeal and his
support for the Nixon
administration's handling of
the war in U.S. News &
World Report; he participated
in several parades and personal
appearances; and a photograph
of him on crutches shaking the
hand of President Richard Nixon
at a White House reception for
returning POWs became
iconic.
McCain underwent treatment for
his injuries, and attended the
National War College in Fort
McNair in Washington, D.C.
during 1973–1974. Few thought
McCain could fly again, but he
was determined to try, and
engaged in nine months of
grueling, painful physical
therapy, especially to get his
knees to bend again. By late
1974 McCain had recuperated
just enough to pass his flight
physical and have his flight
status reinstated, and he
became Executive Officer and
then Commanding Officer of the
VA-174 Hellrazors, the East
Coast A-7 Corsair II Navy
training squadron stationed at
Naval Air Station Cecil Field
outside Jacksonville in Florida
and the largest attack squadron
in the Navy. McCain's
leadership abilities were
credited with turning around a
mediocre unit, improving its
aircraft readiness and pilot
safety metrics and winning the
squadron its first Meritorious
Unit Commendation, and while
some senior officers resented
McCain's presence as favoritism
due to his father, junior
officers rallied to him and
helped him qualify for A-7
carrier landings.
During the time in
Jacksonville, the McCains'
marriage began to falter.
McCain had extramarital
affairs, and he would later
say, "My marriage's collapse
was attributable to my own
selfishness and immaturity more
than it was to Vietnam, and I
cannot escape blame by pointing
a finger at the war. The blame
was entirely mine." His wife
Carol would later echo those
sentiments, saying "I attribute
more to John turning 40 and
wanting to be 25 again than I
do to anything else."
Senate
liaison and second
marriage
In 1976, McCain briefly thought
of running for the U.S. House
of Representatives from
Florida. Instead, based upon
the recommendation of Admiral
James L. Holloway III, in 1977
McCain became the Navy's
liaison to the U.S. Senate.
Returning to the Washington,
D.C. area, McCain soon became
the leader of the Russell
Senate Office Building liaison
operation, and would later say
it represented " real entry
into the world of politics and
the beginning of my second
career as a public servant."
McCain was influenced by
senators of both parties, and
especially by a strong bond
with Republican Senator John
Tower, ranking member of the
Senate Armed Services
Committee. McCain was still
living with his wife, although
they had had one separation
during this time.
In 1979, while attending a
military reception in Hawaii,
McCain met and fell in love
with Cindy Lou Hensley, 17
years his junior, a teacher
from Phoenix, Arizona who was
the daughter of James Willis
Hensley, a wealthy
Anheuser-Busch distributor and
wife Marguerite Smith. By now
it was clear that McCain's
naval career was stalled; he
would never be promoted to
admiral as his grandfather and
father had been.. McCain filed
for and obtained an uncontested
divorce from his wife Carol in
Florida on April 2, 1980; he
gave her a generous settlement,
including houses in Virginia
and Florida and financial
support for her ongoing medical
treatments, and they would
remain on good terms. McCain
and Hensley were married on May
17, 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona,
with Senators William Cohen and
Gary Hart as best man and
groomsman. McCain's children
were very upset with him and
did not attend the wedding, but
after several years they
reconciled with him and
Cindy.
McCain retired from the Navy in
1981 as a Captain. During his
military career, he received a
Silver Star, a Bronze Star, the
Legion of Merit, the Purple
Heart, and a Distinguished
Flying Cross. McCain is one of
five veterans from the Vietnam
War currently serving in the
United States Senate; the
others are Thomas Carper
(D-DE), Chuck Hagel (R-NE),
John Kerry (D-MA) and Jim Webb
(D-VA). A television film
entitled Faith Of My Fathers,
based on McCain's memoir of his
experiences as a POW, aired on
Memorial Day, 2005, on
A&E.
Political
career
Now living in Phoenix, McCain
went to work for his new
father-in-law Jim Hensley's
large Anheuser-Busch beer
distributorship as Vice
President of Public Relations,
where he gained political
support among the local
business community, meeting
powerful figures such as banker
Charles Keating, Jr., real
estate developer Fife Symington
III,, and newspaper publisher
Darrow "Duke" Tully, all the
while looking for an electoral
opportunity. When John Jacob
Rhodes, Jr., the longtime
Republican congressman from
Arizona's 1st congressional
district, announced his
retirement, McCain ran for the
seat as a Republican in 1982.
McCain faced two experienced
state legislators in the
Republican nomination process,
and as a newcomer to the state
was hit with repeated charges
of being a carpetbagger.
Finally at a candidates forum
he gave a famous refutation to
a voter making the charge:
“ Listen, pal. I spent 22 years
in the Navy. My grandfather was
in the Navy. We in the military
service tend to move a lot. We
have to live in all parts of
the country, all parts of the
world. I wish I could have had
the luxury, like you, of
growing up and living and
spending my entire life in a
nice place like the first
district of Arizona, but I was
doing other things. As a matter
of fact, when I think about it
now, the place I lived longest
in my life was Hanoi. ”
A Phoenix Gazette columnist
would later label this "the
most devastating response to a
potentially troublesome
political issue I've ever
heard." With the assistance of
some local political
endorsements and his Washington
connections, as well as
effective television
advertising, partly financed by
$167,000 that his wife lent to
his campaign (which helped him
outspend his opponents), and
with support of Tully's The
Arizona Republic (the state's
most powerful newspaper),
McCain won the highly contested
primary election in September
1982. By comparison, the
general election two months
later became an easy lopsided
victory for him in the heavily
Republican district.
McCain made an immediate
impression in Congress. He was
elected the president of the
1983 Republican freshman class
of representatives. He was
assigned to the Committee on
Interior Affairs, the Select
Committee on Aging, and
eventually to the chairmanship
of the Republican Task Force on
Indian Affairs. He sponsored a
number of Indian Affairs bills,
dealing mainly with giving
distribution of lands to
reservations and tribal tax
status; most of these bills
were unsuccessful. McCain’s
politics at this point were
mainly in line with President
Ronald Reagan, from issues
ranging from the economy to the
Soviet Union. However, his vote
against a resolution allowing
President Reagan to keep U.S.
Marines deployed as part of the
Multinational Force in Lebanon,
on the grounds that he " not
foresee obtainable objectives
in Lebanon," would seem
prescient after the
catastrophic Beirut barracks
bombing a month later; this
vote would also start his
national media reputation as a
political maverick. McCain won
re-election to the House easily
in 1984. In the new term McCain
got the Indian Economic
Development Act of 1985 signed
into law. In 1985 he returned
to Vietnam with Walter Cronkite
for a CBS News special, and saw
the monument put up next to
where the famous downed "air
pirate Ma Can" had been pulled
from the Hanoi lake; it was the
first of several return trips
McCain would make there. In
1986 he broke ranks again in
voting to successfully override
Reagan's veto of the
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid
Act that imposed sanctions
against South Africa.
In 1984 McCain and his wife
Cindy had their first child
together, daughter Meghan. She
was followed in 1986 by son
John Sidney IV (known as
"Jack"), and in 1988 by son
James. In 1991, Cindy McCain
brought an abandoned
three-month old girl, who badly
needed medical treatment for a
severe cleft palate, to the
U.S. from a Bangladeshi
orphanage run by Mother Teresa;
the McCains decided to adopt
her, and named her Bridget. A
drawn-out adoption process
began, slowed down by
uncertainty over the exact fate
of the girl's father, but in
1993 the adoption was ruled
final. McCain then stood by his
wife when she disclosed in 1994
a previous addiction to
painkillers and said that she
hoped the publicity would give
other drug addicts courage in
their struggles. Beginning in
the early 1990s, McCain began
attending the 6,000-member
North Phoenix Baptist Church in
Arizona, part of the Southern
Baptist Convention, later
saying " the message and
fundamental nature more
fulfilling than I did in the
Episcopal church. ... They're
great believers in redemption,
and so am I." Nevertheless he
still identified himself as
Episcopalian, and while Cindy
and two of their children were
baptized, he was not.
U.S.
Senator
McCain decided to run for
United States Senator from
Arizona in 1986, when longtime
American conservative icon and
Arizona fixture Barry Goldwater
retired. No Republican would
oppose McCain in the primary,
and as described by his press
secretary Torie Clarke,
McCain's political strength
convinced his most formidable
possible Democratic opponent,
Governor Bruce Babbitt, not to
run for the senate seat.
Instead McCain faced a weaker
opponent, former state
legislator Richard Kimball, a
young politician with an
offbeat personality who slept
on his office floor and whom
McCain's allies in the Arizona
press characterized as having
"terminal weirdness." McCain's
associations with Duke Tully,
who by now had been disgraced
for having concocted a
ficticious military record, as
well as relevations of
father-in-law Jim Hensley's
past brushes with the law,
became campaign issues, but in
the end McCain won the election
easily with 60 percent of the
vote to Kimball's 40
percent.
Upon entering the Senate in
1987, McCain became a member of
the Senate Armed Services
Committee, with whom he had
formerly done his Navy liaison
work; he also joined the
Commerce Committee and the
Indian Affairs Committee.
McCain soon gained national
visibility, delivering an
emotional, impassioned speech
about his time as a POW at the
1988 Republican National
Convention being mentioned by
the press as a short list
vice-presidential running mate
for Republican nominee George
H. W. Bush, and being named
chairman of Veterans for Bush.
In 1989, he became a staunch
defender of his friend John
Tower's doomed nomination for
U.S. Secretary of Defense;
McCain butted heads with Moral
Majority co-founder Paul
Weyrich — who was challenging
Tower regarding alleged heavy
drinking and extramarital
affairs — and this began
McCain's difficult relationship
with the Christian right, as he
would later write that Weyrich
was "a pompous self-serving son
of a bitch."
Keating
Five
McCain's
upwards political
trajectory was jolted when
he became enmeshed in the
Keating Five scandal of
the 1980s. In the context
of the Savings and Loan
crisis of that decade,
Charles Keating, Jr.'s
Lincoln Savings and Loan
Association, a subsidiary
of his American
Continental Corporation,
was insolvent due to some
bad loans. In order to
regain solvency, Lincoln
sold investment in a real
estate venture as a FDIC
insured savings account.
This caught the eye of
federal regulators who
were looking to shut it
down. It is alleged that
Keating contacted five
senators to whom he made
contributions. McCain was
one of those senators and
he met at least twice in
1987 with Ed Gray,
chairman of the Federal
Home Loan Bank Board,
seeking to prevent the
government's seizure of
Lincoln. Between 1982 and
1987, McCain received
approximately $112,000 in
political contributions
from Keating and his
associates. In addition,
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.
McCain, his family and
baby-sitter made at least
nine trips at Keating's
expense, sometimes aboard
the American Continental
jet. After learning
Keating was in trouble
over Lincoln, McCain paid
for the air trips totaling
$13,433.
Eventually the real estate
venture failed, leaving many
broke. Federal regulators
ultimately filed a $1.1 billion
civil racketeering and fraud
suit against Keating, accusing
him of siphoning Lincoln's
deposits to his family and into
political campaigns. The five
senators came under
investigation for attempting to
influence the regulators. In
the end, none of the senators
were convicted of any crime,
but McCain did receive a rebuke
from the Senate Ethics
Committee for exercising "poor
judgment" for intervening with
the federal regulators on
behalf of Keating. On his
Keating Five experience, McCain
said: "The appearance of it was
wrong. It's a wrong appearance
when a group of senators appear
in a meeting with a group of
regulators, because it conveys
the impression of undue and
improper influence. And it was
the wrong thing to do."
McCain survived the political
scandal by, in part, becoming
very friendly with the
political press; with his blunt
manner, he became a frequent
guest on television news shows,
especially once the 1991 Gulf
War began and his military and
POW experience became in
demand. McCain began
campaigning against lobbyist
money in politics from then on.
His 1992 re-election campaign
found his opposition split
between Democratic community
and civil rights activist
Claire Sargent and impeached
and removed former Governor
Evan Mecham running as in
independent. Although Mecham
garnered some hard-core
conservative support, Sargent's
campaign never gathered
momentum and the Keating Five
affair did not dominate
discussion. McCain again won
handily, getting 56 percent of
the vote to Sargent's 32
percent and Mecham's 11
percent.
A
"maverick"
senator
In January 1993 McCain was
named chairman of the board of
directors of the International
Republican Institute, a
non-profit democracy promotion
organization with informal ties
to the Republican party. The
position would allow McCain to
bolster his foreign policy
expertise and credentials.
McCain also branched out and
worked with Democratic
senators. He was a member of
the Senate Select Committee on
POW/MIA Affairs. McCain worked
with fellow Vietnam War veteran
John Kerry to investigate the
issue. Due to a lack of
recorded evidence, they asked
former President Nixon to
testify, but after Nixon showed
that he was unwilling to do so,
Kerry decided not to call
Nixon. The committee was
finally allowed to look for
POWs and MIA in Vietnam in
1995. They never found any POWs
or MIA, but these actions
allowed for improved ties
between the countries and in
1995 President Bill Clinton
formally recognized the county
of Vietnam as a result of a
piece of legislation authored
by McCain and Kerry.
Having only barely survived the
Keating Five scandal, McCain
made attacking the corrupting
influence of big money on
American politics his signature
issue. Starting in late 1994 he
worked with Democratic
Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold
on campaign finance reform;
their McCain-Feingold bill
would attempt to put limits on
"soft money", funds that
corporations, unions, and other
organizations and unions could
donate to political parties,
which would then be funneled to
political candidates in
circumvention of "hard money"
donation limits. From the
start, McCain and Feingold's
efforts were opposed by large
money interests, by incumbents
in both parties, by those who
felt spending limits impinged
on free political speech, and
by those who wanted to lessen
the power of what they saw as
media bias. On the other hand,
it garnered considerable
sympathetic coverage in the
national media, and from 1995
on, "maverick Republican"
became a label frequently
applied to McCain in stories.
The first version of the
McCain-Feingold Act was
introduced into the Senate in
September 1995; it was
filibustered in 1996 and never
came to a vote.
McCain also attacked pork
barrel spending within
Congress, believing that the
practice did not contribute to
the greater national interest.
Towards this end he was
instrumental in pushing through
approval of the Line Item Veto
Act of 1996, which gave the
president the power to veto
individual items of pork.
Although this was one of
McCain's biggest Senate
victories, the effect was
short-lived as the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled the act
unconstitutional in 1998. In a
more symbolic attempt to limit
congressional privilege, he
introduced an amendment in 1994
to remove free VIP parking for
members of Congress at D.C.
area airports; his annoyed
colleagues rejected the notion
and accused McCain of
grandstanding. McCain was one
of only four Republicans in
Congress to vote against the
Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act in 1995, and was the
only Republican senator to vote
against the Freedom to Farm Act
in 1996. He was one of only
five senators to vote against
the Telecommunications Act of
1996.
At the start of the 1996
presidential election, McCain
served as national campaign
chairman for the highly
unsuccessful Republican
nomination effort of Texas
Senator Phil Gramm. After Gramm
dropped out, McCain endorsed
eventual nominee Senate
Majority Leader Bob Dole, and
was again on the short list of
possible vice-presidential
picks. McCain formed a close
bond with Dole, based in part
on their shared near-death war
experiences; he nominated Dole
at the 1996 Republican National
Convention and was a key friend
and advisor to Dole throughout
his ultimately losing general
election campaign.
In 1997, McCain became chairman
of the powerful Senate Commerce
Committee; he was criticized
for accepting funds from
corporations and businesses
under the committee's purview,
but responded by saying that,
"Literally every business in
America falls under the
Commerce Committee" and that he
restricted those contributions
to $1,000 and thus was not part
of the big-money nature of the
campaign finance problem. In
that year, Time magazine named
McCain as one of the "25 Most
Influential People in America".
McCain used his chairmanship to
take on the tobacco industry in
1998, proposing legislation
that would increase cigarette
taxes in order to fund
anti-smoking campaigns and
reduce the number of teenage
smokers, increase research
money on health studies, and
help states pay for
smoking-related health care
costs. The industry spent some
$40–50 million in national
advertising in response; while
McCain's bill had the support
of the Clinton administration
and many public health groups,
most Republican senators
opposed it, stating it would
create an unwieldy new
bureaucracy. The bill failed to
gain cloture twice and was seen
as a bad political defeat for
McCain. During 1998 a revised
version of the McCain-Feingold
Act came up for Senate
consideration, but while having
majority support it again fell
victim to a filibuster and
failed to gain cloture.
McCain easily won re-election
to a third senate term in
November 1998, gaining 69
percent of the vote to 27
percent for his Democratic
opponent, environmental lawyer
Ed Ranger. Ranger was a
motorcycle enthusiast and
political novice who had only
recently returned from Mexico.
McCain took no "soft money"
during the campaign, but still
raised $4.4 million for his
bid, explaining that he had
needed it in case the tobacco
companies or other Washington
special interests mounted a
strong effort against him. One
of Ranger's campaigning points
had been that McCain was really
more interested in running for
president; McCain indeed
created a presidential
exploratory committee the
following month.
During 1999, the
McCain-Feingold Act once again
came up for consideration, but
the same failure to gain
cloture befell it again. During
that year, McCain shared the
Profile in Courage Award with
Feingold for their work in
trying to enact this campaign
finance reform; McCain was
cited for opposing his own
party on the bill at a time
when he was trying to win the
party's presidential
nomination.
2000
presidential
campaign
McCain's co-authored,
best-selling family memoir,
Faith of My Fathers, published
in August 1999, helped propel
his presidential run for 2000.
McCain had initially planned on
announcing his candidacy and
beginning active campaigning in
April 1999, but the state of
the U.S. involvement in the
Kosovo War caused him to simply
state without fanfare that he
would be a candidate. McCain
formally announced his
candidacy on September 27, 1999
in Nashua, New Hampshire saying
he was staging "a fight to take
our government back from the
power brokers and special
interests and return it to the
people and the noble cause of
freedom it was created to
serve." There was a crowded
field of Republican candidates,
but the big leader in terms of
establishment party support and
fundraising was Texas Governor
and presidential son George W.
Bush. Indeed, top-echelon
Republican contenders such as
Lamar Alexander, John Kasich,
and Dan Quayle were already
withdrawing from the race due
to Bush's strength. The day
after McCain announced, Bush
made a show of visiting Phoenix
and displaying that he, not
McCain, had the endorsement of
Arizona Governor Jane Dee Hull
and several other prominent
local political figures; Hull
would continue to attack McCain
during the campaign, and was
featured in Arizona Republic
and New York Times high-profile
stories about McCain's
reputation for having a bad
temper.
Following political consultant
Mike Murphy's advice, McCain
skipped the Iowa caucus, where
his lack of base party support
would hurt him in organizing,
and focused instead on the New
Hampshire primary, where his
message held appeal to
independents and Bush's father
had never been very popular. He
traveled on a campaign bus
called the Straight Talk
Express, whose name capitalized
on his reputation as a
political maverick who would
speak his mind. In visits to
towns he gave a ten-minute talk
focused on campaign reform
issues, then announced he would
stay until he answered every
question that everyone had. He
made over 200 stops, talking in
every town in New Hampshire in
an example of "retail politics"
that overcame Bush's famous
name. McCain was famously
accessible to the press, using
free media to compensate for
his lack of funds; as one
reporter later recounted,
"McCain talked all day long
with reporters on his Straight
Talk Express bus; he talked so
much that sometimes he said
things that he shouldn't have,
and that's why the media loved
him." On February 1, 2000, he
won the primary with 49 percent
of the vote to Bush's 30
percent, and suddenly was the
celebrity of the hour. Other
Republican candidates had
dropped out or failed to gain
traction, and McCain became
Bush's only serious opponent.
Analysts predicted that a
McCain victory in the crucial
primary in South Carolina would
give him unstoppable
momentum.
However, McCain lost South
Carolina, allowing Bush to
regain the momentum. Analysts
attribute McCain's loss in
South Carolina to Bush's
mobilization of the state's
evangelical voters. Each side
made allegations of negative
campaigning against the other.
There was alleged to have been
a push polling campaign by the
Bush camp, in which telephone
calls were made to conservative
Republican voters in the
so-called Deep South to ask
them whether they would support
McCain if they knew he had an
illegitimate interracial
daughter with a black woman.
McCain in fact had adopted his
daughter Bridget from
Bangladesh. Accounts of this
are covered in the books Bush's
Brain and Boy Genius.
Additionally, conservative
commentator Rush Limbaugh
entered the fray supporting
Bush. McCain would say of the
rumor spreaders, "I believe
that there is a special place
in hell for people like
those."
McCain never completely
recovered from his defeat in
South Carolina, although he did
recover partially by winning in
Michigan and Arizona. However,
he made serious mistakes that
negated any momentum he may
have regained with the Michigan
victory. In Virginia, he began
criticizing conservative
Christian leaders Pat Robertson
and Jerry Falwell. McCain lost
the Virginia primary and then,
a week later, went on to lose 9
of the 13 primaries on Super
Tuesday. His overall loss on
that day has been attributed to
his going "off message",
ineffectively accusing Bush of
being anti-Catholic in response
to his visit to Bob Jones
University and getting into a
verbal battle with leaders of
the Religious Right. McCain
would go on to win a few more
primaries (Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Connecticut and
Vermont), but in a two-man
contest he was unable to catch
up.
During
the George W. Bush
years
In May 2001, McCain voted
against the Economic Growth and
Tax Relief Reconciliation Act
of 2001, President Bush's $350
billion in tax breaks over 11
years, which became known as
"the Bush tax cuts". He was one
of only two Republicans to do
so, arguing that he would
support the tax cut plan if
they were tied to subsequent
decreases in spending. McCain
similarly voted against the
Jobs and Growth Tax Relief
Reconciliation Act of 2003, the
second round of Bush tax cuts
which served to extend and
accelerate the first, saying it
was unwise at a time of war.
McCain later supported the tax
cut extension in 2006, known as
the Tax Increase Prevention and
Reconciliation Act of 2005,
saying not to do so would
amount to a tax increase.
In 2001 the latest iteration of
McCain-Feingold was introduced
into the Senate; helped by the
2000 election results, it
passed the Senate in one form
but procedural obstacles and
the effects of the September
11, 2001 attacks delayed it
again. Finally in March 2002,
aided by the aftereffects of
the Enron scandal, it passed
both House and Senate and,
known formally as the
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act,
was signed into law by
President Bush. Seven years in
the making, it was McCain's
greatest legislative
achievement and had become, in
the words of one biographer,
"one of the most famous pieces
of federal legislation in
modern American political
history."
McCain differed with Bush or
large portions of the
Republican base electorate by
broadly defining torture, by
supporting a pathway to
citizenship for illegal
immigrants with some
restrictions, by calling for
steps to halt anthropogenic
global warming, and by
supporting some affirmative
action and gun control
measures. On judicial
appointments, McCain was a
believer in judges who “would
strictly interpret the
Constitution,” and over the
years had supported the
confirmations of Robert Bork,
Clarence Thomas, John Roberts,
and Samuel Alito; however,
McCain also led the Gang of 14
in the Senate, to preserve the
ability of senators to
filibuster judicial nominees,
but only in "extraordinary
circumstances."
Nevertheless, McCain publicly
supported President Bush during
the 2004 U.S. presidential
election; he often praised
Bush's management since the
September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks. McCain's colleague,
and also the 2004 Democratic
Presidential nominee, John
Kerry of Massachusetts,
reportedly asked McCain to be
his running mate. McCain
accused the "Swift Boat"
campaign against Kerry of being
"dishonest and
dishonorable."
McCain was himself up for
re-election as Senator in 2004.
There was some talk of
Representative Jeff Flake
mounting a Republican primary
challenge against McCain;
Stephen Moore, president of the
ideologically-oriented Club for
Growth (which attempts to
defeat those it considers
Republican in Name Only), led
talk for the prospect, saying
"Our members loathe John
McCain." Flake decided not to
do it, later saying "I would
have been whipped." In the
general election McCain had his
biggest margin of victory yet,
garnering 77 percent of the
vote against little-known
Democrat Stuart Starky, an
eighth grade math teacher whom
The Arizona Republic termed a
"sacrificial lamb". Exit polls
showed that McCain even won a
majority of the votes cast by
Democrats.
Following his 2000 presidential
campaign, McCain became a
frequent sight on entertainment
programs in the television and
film worlds. He hosted the
October 12, 2002, episode of
Saturday Night Live, making him
the third U.S. Senator after
Paul Simon and George McGovern,
to host the show. In the
comedic news realm, he has been
a regular guest on The Daily
Show, and is a good friend of
the host Jon Stewart; in
McCain's most recent appearance
on the show, Stewart claimed
that McCain had been a guest on
the Daily Show more times than
any other person (11 times
according to McCain). McCain
appeared on Late Night with
Conan O'Brien in 2005 in a bit
entitled "Secrets", and has
also appeared several times on
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
and the Late Show with David
Letterman. McCain made a brief
cameo on the television show 24
in 2006 and also made a cameo
in the 2005 summer movie
Wedding Crashers.
In the more serious realm, a
2005 made-for-TV movie, Faith
of My Fathers, was based on
John McCain's memoirs of his
experience in the Vietnam War.
McCain is also interviewed in
the 2005 documentary Why We
Fight by Eugene Jarecki.
2008 presidential campaign
See also: John McCain
presidential campaign, 2008 and
United States presidential
election, 2008
McCain announced he is seeking
the 2008 Presidential
nomination from the Republican
Party on the February 28, 2007,
telecast of the Late Show With
David Letterman. McCain
officially started his 2008
presidential campaign on April
25, 2007, in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire. Should McCain win in
2008, he would be the oldest
person to assume the Presidency
in history at initial ascension
to office, being 72 years old
and surpassing Ronald Reagan,
who was 69 years old at his
inauguration following the 1980
election. He has dismissed
concerns about his age and past
health concerns (malignant
melanoma in 2000), stating in
2005 that his health was
"excellent." In the event of
his victory in 2008, he would
also become the first President
of the United States to be born
in a U.S. territory outside of
the current 50 states.
McCain's oft-cited strengths as
a presidential candidate for
2008 included national name
recognition, sponsorship of
major lobbying and campaign
finance reform initiatives,
leadership in exposing the
Abramoff scandal, his
well-known military service and
experience as a POW, his
experience from the 2000
presidential campaign,
extensive fundraising
abilities, and strong advocacy
for President Bush's
re-election campaign in 2004. A
Time magazine poll dated
January 2007 showed McCain
trailing possible Democratic
opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton
by 1%; results also indicated
that more Americans were
familiar with McCain than any
of the other frontrunners,
including Republican candidate
and former New York mayor Rudy
Giuliani, and Democratic
hopeful Senator Barack Obama.
During the 2006 election cycle,
McCain attended 346 events and
raised more than $10.5 million
on behalf of Republican
candidates. He also donated
nearly $1.5 million to federal,
state and county parties. In a
bid to finally gain support
from the Christian right,
McCain gave the May 2006
commencement address at Jerry
Falwell's Liberty University.
During his 2000 presidential
bid, McCain had called Falwell
an "agent of intolerance";
McCain now said that Falwell
was no longer as divisive and
the two have discussed their
shared values,
McCain's second-quarter 2007
fundraising totals fell from
$13.6 million in the first
quarter to $11.2 million in the
second, and expenses continuing
such that only $2 million cash
was on hand with about $1
million in debts. Both McCain
supporters and political
observers pointed to McCain's
support for the Comprehensive
Immigration Reform Act of 2007,
very unpopular among the
Republican base electorate, as
a primary cause of his
fundraising problems.
Large-scale campaign staff
downsizing took place in early
July, with 50 to 100 staffers
let go and others taking pay
cuts or switching to no pay.
McCain's aides said the
campaign was considering taking
public matching funds, and
would focus its efforts on the
early primary and caucus
states. McCain however said he
was not considering dropping
out of the race. Campaign
shakeups reached the top level
on July 10, 2007, when his
campaign manager and campaign
chief strategist both
departed.
John McCain has taken his
familiar position as an
underdog. Senator McCain has
returned to his "Straight Talk"
strategy even though he no
longer rides on the original
"Straight Talk" bus. These
actions, infighting amongst his
rivals, endorsements from
Senators Sam Brownback and Joe
Lieberman, and some key early
state endorsements from the
editorial boards at the Union
Leader, The Des Moines
Register, The Portsmouth
Herald, and The Boston Globe
have led to a rebound in the
polls.
Political
positions
A lifelong Republican, McCain's
American Conservative Union
total rating is 82 percent with
a 65 percent rating for 2006.
However, McCain has supported
some initiatives not agreed
upon by his own party and has
been called a "maverick" by
certain members of the American
media. McCain's reputation as a
maverick stems from his
authorship of the
McCain-Feingold Campaign
Finance Reform Bill, opposition
to torture, support for
providing a pathway to
citizenship for undocumented
immigrants with some
restrictions, belief in
anthropogenic global warming,
mixed record on affirmative
action, sometime support for
gun control legislation, and
opposition to President Bush's
$350 billion in tax breaks over
11 years, which are also known
as the Bush tax cuts.
In the 2000 elections, many
thought of Bush as the more
conservative candidate and
McCain as the more moderate
candidate. In fact, according
to Voteview.com, McCain's
voting record in the 109th
Congress was the third most
conservative among senators.
However, his voting record
during the 107th Congress, from
January 2001 through November
2002, placed him as the 6th
most liberal Republican
senator, according to the same
analysis at voteview.com.
McCain also has some
traditionally Republican views
that include: a strong pro-life
voting record, a strong free
trade voting record (including
a 100% rating from the Cato
Institute), wanting private
social security accounts,
opposition to socialized health
care, supporting school
vouchers, supporting the death
penalty, supporting mandatory
sentencing, and supporting
welfare reform.
Cultural
and political
image
Writer
John Karaagac states that,
"The military holds a
special place in American
society and in American
democracy. In both war and
peace, the military
becomes the archetype of
democratic values and
aspirations.... The
competing tension of
intense institutional
loyalty on one hand and
guardian of the republic
on the other the military
view of politics is bound
to be ambivalent."
Karaagac then sees John
McCain as a focal point of
this tension and
ambivalence. After many
years of observing McCain,
New York Times columnist
David Brooks writes that
"there is nobody in
politics remotely like
him," making reference to
his energy and dynamism,
his rebelliousness and
desire to battle powerful
political forces, his
willingness to endlessly
and truthfully talk with
reporters, and his being
"driven by an ancient
sense of honor." Brooks
does not see McCain
without political fault,
but explains that, "There
have been occasions when
McCain compromised his
principles for political
gain, but he was so bad at
it that it always
backfired." McCain's own
emphasis on personal
character was revealed in
a University of
Missouri-Columbia study of
political discourse in the
2000 Republican primary
campaign, which showed
McCain using fewer policy,
and more character,
utterances than any other
candidate. Reason and Los
Angeles Times writer Matt
Welch, author of McCain:
The Myth of a Maverick,
sees political pundits as
projecting their own
ideological fantasies upon
McCain, and McCain's
"maverick" persona more
importantly shields
McCain's impulses
assembling towards the
goal of "restor your faith
in the U.S. government by
any means necessary,"
which would often involve
statist solutions, with
Theodore Roosevelt as a
model and in the end the
realization "that
Americans 'were meant to
transform history' and
that sublimating the
individual in the service
of that 'common national
cause' is the wellspring
of honor and purpose."
McCain has a history, beginning
with his military career, of
lucky charms and superstitions
to gain fortune. While serving
in Vietnam, he demanded that
his parachute rigger clean his
visor before each flight. On
the 2000 campaign, he carried a
lucky compass, feather, shoes,
pen, penny and, at times, a
rock. An incident when McCain
misplaced his feather caused a
brief panic in the
campaign.
McCain has been treated for
recurrent skin cancer,
including melanoma, in 1993,
2000, and 2002; one of the
resulting operations left a
noticeable mark on the left
side of his face. This,
combined with his war wounds
and advancing years, led him to
repeatedly use a
self-deprecating remark during
his 2007 campaigning: "I am
older than dirt and have more
scars than Frankenstein."
The characteristics that led to
McCain gaining hundreds of
demerits at the Naval Academy
have never fully left him; by
his own admission, he has an
"irremediable" personality
trait of being "a wiseass," and
as he added: "Occasionally my
sense of humor is
ill-considered or ill-timed,
and that can be a problem."
Others have concurred: A 2007
Associated Press story was
titled "McCain's WMD Is a Mouth
That Won't Quit". Over the
years this trait has led to a
series of controversial
remarks:
In his 1986 senate campaign, he
referred to the Leisure World
retirement community as
"Seizure World", where "97
percent of the people vote and
the other 3 percent are in
intensive care," a joke made
worse when he did not directly
apologize for any offense
caused by it.
In 1998, McCain was chastised
for reportedly making an
off-color joke at a Republican
fundraiser about President
Clinton's daughter, Chelsea,
saying "Why is Chelsea Clinton
so ugly? Because her father is
Janet Reno." McCain later
apologized to President Clinton
and Clinton accepted his
apology.
McCain openly used the term
"gook", in reference to his
Vietnamese torturers during the
Vietnam War, even since his
return as a POW. During the
2000 presidential campaign, he
repeatedly refused to apologize
for his continued use of the
term, stating that he reserved
its reference only to his
captors. Late in the primary
season, with growing criticism
from the Asian American
community in the politically
important state of California,
McCain reversed his position,
and vowed to no longer use the
term in public.
During a campaign appearance in
Murrells Inlet, South Carolina
on April 18, 2007, McCain was
asked a question about possible
military action against Iran.
He responded by singing “Bomb
bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to
the melody of the Beach Boys'
song "Barbara Ann", reminiscent
of a 1980 parody by Vince Vance
& The Valiants. When later
confronted about the matter,
McCain stated, "My response is
lighten up, and get a life."
Asked whether the joke he made
was insensitive, McCain
retorted, "Insensitive to what?
The Iranians?"
During a taping of The Daily
Show on April 24, 2007, host
Jon Stewart asked McCain, "What
do you want to start with, the
bomb Iran song or the walk
through the market in Baghdad?"
McCain responded by saying,"I
think maybe shopping in Baghdad
... I had something picked out
for you, too — a little IED to
put on your desk." On April 25,
2007, representative John
Murtha demanded an apology from
McCain on the floor of the
House, where Murtha said that
to make jokes about bringing
IEDs back for comedians was
unconscionable when so many
soldiers are dying from IEDs in
Iraq. McCain responded by
telling Murtha and other
critics to "Lighten up and get
a life."
On May 18, 2007 McCain swore at
fellow Senator John Cornyn:
According to a Washington Post
blog, "During a meeting
Thursday on immigration
legislation, McCain and Sen.
John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into
a shouting match when Cornyn
started voicing concerns about
the number of judicial appeals
that illegal immigrants could
receive, according to multiple
sources — both Democrats and
Republicans — who heard
firsthand accounts of the
exchange from lawmakers who
were in the room... ' you! I
know more about this than
anyone else in the room.'" The
comments occurred after Cornyn
told McCain, "Wait a second
here. I've been sitting in here
for all of these negotiations
and you just parachute in here
on the last day. You're out of
line."
The traditions McCain was
brought up under have extended
to his own family. His son John
Sidney IV ("Jack") is enrolled
in the U.S. Naval Academy, and
his son James enlisted in the
U.S. Marine Corps in 2006,
began recruit training later
that year, and by the end of
2007 was stationed in Iraq as
part of Operation Iraqi
Freedom. His daughter Meghan
graduated from Columbia
University, and works on his
presidential campaign. From his
first marriage, his son Doug
attended the Naval Academy,
became a Navy pilot, then a
commercial pilot for American
Airlines; his son Andy is vice
president and CFO at Hensley
& Company; and his daughter
Sidney is a recording industry
executive. Altogether he has
seven children, born across
four decades — all of whom are
reported to be on good terms
with him, his wife, and each
other — and, as of 2007, four
grandchildren. Cindy McCain
suffered a stroke in 2004 due
to high blood pressure, but
appeared to make a full
recovery. They reside in
Phoenix, and she remains the
chair of the large
Anheuser-Busch beer and liquor
distributor Hensley &
Company, founded by her father.
By September 2007, McCain's
denominational migration was
complete, and he was
identifying himself as a
Baptist.
Awards
and honors
On May 24, 1999, McCain shared
the Profile in Courage Award
with fellow Senator Russ
Feingold for their work in
trying to enact campaign
finance reform.
In December 2004, McCain became
an Honorary Patron of the
University Philosophical
Society at Trinity College
Dublin.
On September 28, 2005, The
Eisenhower Institute awarded
McCain the Eisenhower
Leadership Prize. The prize
recognizes individuals whose
lifetime accomplishments
reflect Dwight D. Eisenhower’s
legacy of integrity and
leadership.
On December 5, 2006, McCain was
awarded the Henry M. Jackson
Distinguished Service Award by
the Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs.
On February 13, 2007, the World
Leadership Forum presented
McCain with the Policymaker of
the Year Award. The award is
given internationally to
someone who has "created,
inspired or strongly influenced
important policy or
legislation."
Decorations
Silver
Star
Legion of Merit
Bronze Star Medal
Purple Heart
Distinguished Flying Cross
Source : Some
of the information on this page
came from a Wikipedia
article and is
licensed under the GNU
Documentation License.
©2008
www.geneticmatrix.com.
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John
McCain - Generator
- Biography