By RF Schatten
How do you successfully define a Legacy, when your whole public and private life has been one long news media reality show?...and not necessarily, all that successful!
Poor John McCain!...he finally got that Senate Chairmanship he craved for all these years...yet, his insecurity on how people perceive him now, in the September of his political career, has become a matter of desperation. You may not give a rat's ass when your young...because you're so invincible!...but as you grow older and wiser, you'll probably look back with some regrets and try find some ways of redeeming yourself. A National Campaign to define his legacy?...or is it, to "re-define" his legacy?
The Maverick's Legacy? He graduated from Annapolis...like his father and grandfather...but unlike those 2 Admirals, he graduated 894th out of 899 Midshipmen in his class. He went on to Pensacola for flight training, where he was known as a "reckless and careless" hotshot flyer and a party guy...not unusual for a military brat...and then came Vietnam, where he crashed 2 jets and another one that burned during a fire on the deck of the Forrestal, where 134 men died...and even once, he collided with power lines. That bad luck ended and another one began, when he was shot down by a missile over Hanoi!
More legacy? how about his personal character! This is the loving husband and father who moonlighted as a philanderer. Instead of staying in the Navy, he resigned in order to start a Political career...now that his POW fame brought him celebrity status. But it also brought out his arrogance and showed what kind of human piece of shit he truly was. With a wife that was left severely crippled by an auto accident...John Boy felt she wasn't the proper wife, a successful politico needs to have. She wasn't 'attractive' enough!...as his ex-wife said, politely as possible; "‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn't want to be 40, he wanted to be 25".
Numerous personal and family acquaintances portray the politician as a self-centered womanizer who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, who's filthy rich, for financial reasons and to further his political career. When you're making $25k per year in the Navy, and your new father-in-law is a multimillionaire with political influence...what are you waiting for? take advantage and play the Game of Politics! what else?
Political Legacy? He could have won the Democrats' support and votes as that "Maverick"...before he declared he's a Right Wing Conservative to grab the Tea Lovers' votes, instead. He's been a little of everything to everybody...appealing to Liberals and Progressives, appealing to the Far Right, and all of this while declaring to be a "Mainstream" Conservative Republican.
John Sidney McCain III may want to define his Legacy as a great War Hero, a great Military Strategist, great Foreign Relations understanding, and the greatest US Senator from Arizona...greater than Barry Goldwater!
His Legacy? Understanding this man's intelligence, and why he ranked 894th in his class...he selected Sarah Palin! Enough said?
News from The Associated Press
