The Smelly Cheese

I know what your thinking. How could a man whose entire life and career is built on military service be so stingy when it comes to the military? Well, I have only two rational theories.

The first being that McCain is suffering from "old man on the porch" syndrome. In his eyes these goddamn punk kids in Iraq and Afghanistan have it way to easy into today's warfare. After all unless you've spent a minimum of 5 years in a torture camp, how can you live up to his standards? He was beaten ever two hours for several years like clockwork, so whether or not some Private gets an extra layer of Kevlar isn't on the top of his "to do list." In other words John McCain is a lot like the Jack Nicholson character in "A Few Good Men."

The second theory involves John McCain slowly but surely selling his senatorial career and reputation over to weapons manufacturing lobbyists, the extreme right-wing of the GOP and president G.W. Bush's legacy. Sure it goes against the idea that McCain only speaks in "straight talk" and wants to reform campaign finances, but it has ensured him an opportunity to become president.

If we postulate that both theories could be true then essentially we are left with the idea that certain sacrifices must be made in order for John McCain to become president. Maybe a few thousand American troops, a few thousand from Iraqi security forces and 40-50,000 civilians. These are conservative estimates at best and since John McCain claims that we can't leave until the job is done you can basically double or triple those numbers for the anticipated 10-20 year occupation.

All of this must be done so Senator McCain can fulfill complete his own legacy or war hero, senator and president. Is this so he can feel that his own personal sacrifice in Vietnam meant something? Isn't being a senator enough? Isn't being a good human being enough?

I think John McCain could save himself and the American people a lot of heartache and money if he were to build his own foundation for wounded veterans. Or maybe he could just start talking with another soldier that's been through hell and back.

I'm not mocking the man's service. He's clearly a much more stalwart person than myself, but I see in him a deeply flawed leader and human being. This guy has got "unresolved issues" coming out of every pore on his body. He's not conflicted. His experiences in war haven't lead him to some greater understanding. He's a man seeking revenge against an enemy that died a long time ago. And now that he has adopted the neoconservative outlook of the Bush white house, he's ready to reshape the rest of the globe with assault weapons and water boarding.

If McCain does obtain his prize and become the next president, I'd probably end up feeling sorry for him on some level. He would become a failed president whose strong moral fiber crumbled under the unbearable weight of an ideology that wasn't really his own to begin with. He would no longer be remembered as a war hero but a war monger and a man who could not bring his country back from the brink of perpetual conflict.