 McCain's
Out-of-Control Anger: Does He Have the Temperament to Be President?
by Ronald Kessler
(7/6/06)
WASHINGTON -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is considered a front-runner
for the 2008 race, but does McCain have the temperament to be president?
As portrayed by the mainstream media, McCain is an engaging war hero,
a man of political moderation positioned between the left and the
right.
But to insiders who know him, McCain has an irrational, explosive
side that make many of them question whether he is fit to serve
as president and be commander in chief.
Nowhere is that sentiment stronger than in the Senate, where McCain
has few friends or supporters. In fact, when McCain ran for the
Republican nomination for president in 2000, only four Republican
senators endorsed him.
"I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues
and exploded at colleagues," said former Senator Bob Smith,
a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate
Armed Services Committee and on Republican policy committees. "He
would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents
of irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten
angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that."
McCain's outbursts often erupted when other members rebuffed his
requests for support during his bid in 2000 for the Republican
nomination for president. A former Senate staffer recalled what
happened when McCain asked for support from a fellow Republican
senator on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
"The senator explained that he had already committed to support
George Bush," the former Senate staffer said. "McCain
said ‘f— you' and never spoke to him again."
"He had very few friends in the Senate," said former Senator
Smith, who dealt with McCain almost daily. "He has a lot of
support around the country, but I don't think he has a lot of support
from people who know him well."
Another former senator who requested anonymity recalled an exchange
at a Republican policy lunch. McCain turned on another senator
who disagreed with him.
"McCain used the f-word," the former senator said. "McCain
called the guy a ‘sh--head.' The senator demanded an apology.
McCain stood up and said, ‘I apologize, but you're still
a sh--head.' That was in front of 40 to 50 Republican senators.
That sort of thing happened frequently."
"People who disagree with him get the f--- you," said former
Rep. John LeBoutillier, a New York Republican who had an encounter
with McCain when he was on a POW task force in the House. After
LeBoutillier had openly tape recorded comments at a conference,
McCain got the idea that LeBoutillier was secretly tape recording
him. "Are you wired up?" LeBoutillier quoted McCain as
asking. "Of course not," LeBoutillier said.
"Prove it," McCain said.
LeBoutillier said he lowered his pants, apparently satisfying McCain
that he was not taping him.
"He is a vicious person," LeBoutillier said. "Nearly
all the Republican senators endorsed Bush because they knew McCain
from serving with him in the Senate. They so disliked him that
they wouldn't support him. They have been on the hard end of his
behavior."
Andrea Jones, McCain's press secretary, did not respond to requests
from NewsMax for comment.
Senators are leery of speaking on the record about what McCain is
really like. Bob Smith described his behavior reluctantly. A former
Republican senator listed Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, and Pete
Dominici, fellow Republican senators, as being among those who
had encountered McCain's outbursts, but none of them agreed to
be interviewed on the subject.
Most major media outlets have been uninterested in pursuing the subject.
Virtually every media outlet ran Sen. Trent Lott's comment at a
100th birthday tribute to Strom Thurmond. As a result of the criticism
over his remarks, Lott stepped aside as Senate majority leader.
But only a few news outlets, like the Phoenix New Times in Arizona
and the National Journal, that ran an Associated Press story reporting
McCain's 1998 joke suggesting that Chelsea Clinton was ugly and
Janet Reno and Hillary Clinton were lesbians.
"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" McCain said at a GOP
fund-raiser in Washington. "Because Janet Reno is her father."
McCain apologized to the Clintons. But more
recently, McCain said on Fox News, "You know, the French remind me a little bit
of an aging actress of the 1940s who is still trying to dine out
on her looks but doesn't have the face for it." In part because
he gives reporters access and charms them with his apparent openness,
McCain gets good press.
"A presidential candidate is not supposed to talk at length
and on the record about the rules he broke or the strippers he
dated, or the time he arrived so drunk that he fell through the
screen door of the young lady he was wooing," Time wrote in
a Dec. 13, 1999 profile of McCain. "The candor tells you more
than the comment, and reporters sometimes just decide to take him
off the record because they don't want to see him flame out and
burn up a great story."
"National reporters may genuflect, but local journalists cringe
at the thought of covering McCain, better known in Arizona for
his short temper, refusal to take calls, and attempts at media
manipulation than for the ‘straight talk' he doles out .
. ." a Playboy profile said in February 2000.
When people have come forward to relate their
bizarre experiences with McCain, only minor publications or
the foreign press have run their accounts. The favored treatment
is reminiscent of the way the press turned a blind eye to
John F. Kennedy's dalliances — except
that voters have far more need to know about evidence of instability
than presidential infidelities.
"The White House is a character crucible," according to
Bertram S. Brown, M.D., a psychiatrist who formerly headed the
National Institute of Mental Health and was an aide to President
John F. Kennedy. "It either creates or distorts character
. . . . Even if an individual is balanced, once someone becomes
president, how does one solve the conundrum of staying real and
somewhat humble when one is surrounded by the most powerful office
in the land and from becoming overwhelmed by an at times pathological
environment that treats you every day as an emperor? "Here
is where the true strength of the character of the person, not
his past accomplishments, will determine whether his presidency
ends in accomplishment or failure."
When asked about his temper, McCain has portrayed himself as angry
about issues.
"Do I feel passionately about issues? Absolutely," McCain
has said. "Do I get angry when I see pork barreling and wasteful
spending? Absolutely."
But McCain's outbursts have not been directed at policy issues or
waste. Instead, even if they are longtime friends, he explodes
at people who disagree with him or who tell him they cannot support
him.
Pat Murphy, an editor at the Arizona Republic, became friends with
McCain in the early 1980s. As Murphy rose to become publisher of
the paper, their friendship continued. In 1989, Murphy and his
wife Betty had lunch with McCain in the Senate dining room. They
were talking about a hearing on a federal project to build a dam
system designed to deliver water from the Colorado River to Arizona.
Even though the project was supposed to be non-partisan, McCain
told Murphy he had planted highly technical questions with a member
of the Senate Appropriations Committee to ask when Rose Mofford,
the governor of Arizona, testified. The idea was, because she was
a Democrat, to make her squirm when she did not know the answers.
Murphy was horrified and told McCain his feelings. After that, McCain
froze him out.
"What has struck me about McCain is that everybody underestimated
the ability of his advisers and him to hypnotize the national media,
because most of us in the media in Arizona thought of him as a
guy who had a terrible temper, occasionally had a foul mouth, a
guy who whined and pouted unless he got his way," Murphy said. "McCain
has a temper that is bombastic, volatile, and purple-faced. Sometimes
he gets out of control. Do you want somebody sitting in the White
House with that kind of temper?'
Former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, a Democrat,
encountered McCain's temper when he and other local mayors
briefed the Arizona congressional delegation on local issues.
After Johnson spoke, McCain said, "Hold
it a minute. Somebody write down everything this guy has to say.
You know what, we need to record him. It's best to get a liar on
tape."
Johnson stood up and said, "Senator, if
you have a problem with me, why don't we go out in the hallway
and talk about it."
"You're goddamn right I have a problem with you," McCain
said. "They've been treating you like a princess in Phoenix
while they've been burning me over this dam deal, and I'm sick
of it."
A longtime member of Senator Dennis DeConcini's staff, Judy Leiby,
worked on veteran's issues and had differed with McCain on some
of them over the years. After DeConcini announced he was retiring
in 1994, McCain showed up in his office.
"I was standing around talking to about a half a dozen postal
workers I'd worked real closely with," Leiby recalled. "And
McCain came in. He walked down the line, shaking hands, and he
ignored me. And one postal worker said, ‘Do you know Judy
Leiby?' He said, ‘Oh, yeah, I know her.'"
McCain turned away from Leiby, trembling.
"You could tell he was so angry, he was white," she said. "He
turned back to me and said, ‘I'm so glad you're out of a
job, and I'll see that you never work again.'"
Of this incident, McCain said that because he
didn't hold Leiby in "particularly
high esteem," he thought it would be hypocritical to shake
her hand. "I didn't raise my voice, didn't offer any disparaging
remarks or insults," he said.
Jim Abbott, the supervisor of the Coronado National
Forest, reported a similar threat by McCain in 1989. Worried
about the impact on the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel,
Abbott ordered a halt to construction of University of Arizona
telescopes at the top of the mountain. McCain then asked to
meet with Abbott and said, "If
you do not cooperate on this project, you'll be the shortest-tenured
forest supervisor in the history of the Forest Service."
A few days later, McCain called Abbott to apologize. Construction
ultimately proceeded after McCain backed legislation to create
an exemption for the project from the Endangered Species Act and
other existing laws.
Democrat Marty Russo had an altercation with McCain when McCain was
in the House, according to the Atlantic Monthly.
"Seven-letter profanities escalated to 12-letter ones and then
to pushes and shoves, before the two were separated," according
to the account.
In 1993, the Boston Globe reported that McCain "came across
the Senate floor and, while mocking [Ted] Kennedy, told him to ‘shut
up,' according to observers in the chamber. "A stunned Kennedy
returned the comment, telling McCain to ‘shut up' and ‘act
like a senator.'"
The previous year, Robin Silver and Bob Witzeman, both medical doctors,
met with McCain at his Phoenix office to discuss the endangered
Mount Graham red squirrel. At the mention of the issue, McCain
erupted.
"He slammed his fists on his desk, scattering papers across
the room," Silver said. "He jumped up and down, screaming
obscenities at us for at least 10 minutes. He shook his fists as
if he was going to slug us."
After Silver pointed out that his behavior was
inappropriate, "He
apologized and was contrite," Silver said.
Indeed, senators joke among themselves about
their collection of "McCain
Notes" — apologies McCain sends after he has unleashed
a tirade. The question on the minds of those who know him is whether
a man who seems so out of control should have the authority to
unleash nuclear weapons.
"I think he is not fit to be president," said
former congressman LeBoutillier.
Original Article published at: archive.newsmax.com
Ronald Borek Kessler (born December
31, 1943) is an American journalist and author. He is chief Washington
correspondent of the conservative news and commentary website Newsmax.com. |
