McCain: The Myth of a Maverick

by Matt Welch

Book Overview

John McCain is one of the most familiar, sympathetic, and overexposed figures in American politics, yet his concrete governing philosophy and actual track record have been left curiously unexamined, mostly because of the massive distractions in his official biography, but also because of his ingenious strategy of talking ad infinitum to each and every access-craving media person who happens by. The more he has spouted, the less journalists have...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0230608051
• ISBN13: 9780230608054
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.6" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Election '08 foretold

Anyone lucky enough to read this book before 11/04/08 had McCain's playbook in hand. Everything that undid McCain's candidacy is sketched here: McCain's belief in luck versus self-determination, his recklessness, his refusal to take counsel. Only the name "Palin" is missing.

Ask not...

You don't have to be a libertarian, I think, to find something disturbing in the definitiveness with which John McCain declares (as Matt Welch quotes from the Senator's autobiography Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick, and the Heroes Who Inspired Him), "I have no reluctance to subordinate my independence to a cause greater than my own self interest. But that cause is my country, first and last. ... Were I to believe otherwise, the independence I have prized all my life will have been nothing more than egotism" (p. 83). For voters or interested citizens of any political persuasion, "McCain: The Myth of a Maverick" performs a valuable service in showing just how much John McCain means what he says. Most voters, I would imagine, have some vague idea of John McCain's biography, particularly his years as a prisoner of the brutal Vietnamese communists. But Welch excels in showing how McCain's roots influence his world view and his sense of where he wants to lead this country. The author gives us many examples of McCain disparaging those who pursue self-interest or personal gain while honoring those who place "country" (which in practice means government service) before "self" (the productive sector). But given that McCain is a lifelong federal employee, the son and grandson of lifelong federal employees, this is really little more than *nostrism*, the egoism that extravagantly praises a collective of which he is himself a part. The greatest merit of Welch's "McCain," is his proof of how much McCain is driven by this idea of "a cause greater," and by his belief that, as again quoted from his autobiography, "the proper object of every American's citizenship" is "national greatness" (p. 94). Combine that with his stated preference that he "would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt" (p. 95), then ask not what you can do for your country because President McCain is going to tell you. (To be fair, President Obama and President Rodham possess this same urge to march at the head of a well-drilled body of citizens all subordinating their independence to "a cause greater" chosen for us by our Leader) It's probably "nothing more than egotism" to believe that while a man can subordinate his own life to whatever he wants, it is grossly immoral for him to make that decision about anyone else's life. Other people are not your property. Though it is sadly not getting the same degree of attention as some other McCain biographies out there, "McCain: The Myth of a Maverick" raises some pretty profound questions. We had better start answering them before we find they've all been answered for us

Thoughtful, thorough analysis

I have read a lot of biographies of political figures -Woodrow Wilson; Theodore Roosevelt; George Wallace, Walter Mondale, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon - and rank Welch's recent bio of Sen. John McCain up with the best of them. Although not a traditional biography, in that it is not a history of McCain's life but rather a deep analysis of his political philosophy, McCain, The Myth of a Maverick is valuable because it exposes the many contradictions and tensions between the public persona of presidential candidate and senator and the private individual. And, Welch asks the all important question: given what we know about McCain from his own words, what kind of president would John McCain be? In writing about a living person, Welch faces a delicate dilemma: on one hand, the fact that his subject is alive gives the author prospect of direct and intimate access (access ultimately denied by McCain) but this is countered by the intense pressure to self-censor that does not exist when the subject is dead and one no longer has to worry about hurting the person's feelings. Welch is open about his affinity for McCain as well as his own political values, but unlike most journalists who have covered McCain, refuses to ignore the less than attractive facts about the man. Since McCain, the Myth of a Maverick is more political analysis rather than traditional political biography, it is on the short side, yet nonetheless succinctly captures the basic narrative of McCain's life as it relates to McCain's political career and ambitions. The underlying purpose of this book is also the goal of political journalism: to reveal that which is hidden, which, in McCain's case, is in plain sight. The most prominent theme of the book is the fact that the Emperor has no clothes and has openly been parading around Washington and the nation naked. That the political press and much of the country has chosen to ignore this fact reflects as much on the weaknesses of American political journalists and the American people as it does of McCain. As a journalist, Welch writes in an easy, accessible manner, and manages to make his subject interesting. With biography, there is little plot; only the degree to which the subject's life is interesting determines how much of a page-turner a biography will be. This book reads quickly; it took me less than 8 hours to read it; someone with smaller chunks of time could finish it within a weekend. Anyone considering voting for Sen. McCain as well as the dozens of journalists covering the McCain campaign should read this book. Those inclined to support the senator because of his image as a "maverick" are likely to have their assumptions seriously challenged; those who dislike McCain for various reasons will probably have their feelings confirmed. Either way, McCain, the Myth of a Maverick is a revealing yet thoughtful expose of the senior senator from Arizona.

Excellent "untold story" of McCain

I found the book fascinating. So often, biographies of current political stars seem like little more than a series of newspaper articles cleverly edited together. Myth of a Maverick delivers, debunking the myth and revealing the McCain the media has somehow missed.

A biography in the tradition of Nixon Agonistes

Matt Welch brings back a tradition in biography that was once a hallmark in American politics, but has declined in the last twenty years: the sober-minded character study. Taking a page from Garry Wills, Henry Adams and Theodore White, Welch sets out to examine something in his subject that is all too easily forgotten in today's pundit-dominated political coverage: what does McCain actually believe? Not a hatchet job by any stretch of the imagination: although writing as a libertarian critic, Welch is fair enough to his subject that he allows the reader to form his own conclusions about McCain's stances on issues like campaign bribery reform, while delineating the clear rupture between the small government, pro-privacy but anti-Civil Rights tradition of Goldwater and the activist, big government conservatism of McCain and Bush. A must-read for the 2008 campaign.