Honolulu Lite
FORGET allegations that George W. Bush was a druggie and a playboy. Forget charges that Al Gore accepted illegal Chinese campaign donations. Forget the fact that the current occupant of the White House is an admitted liar and womanizer. McCain won
right to get madThe most serious political scandal of the day is that Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a bad temper.
The biggest newspaper in McCain's home state of Arizona broke the devastating news that McCain sometimes gets mad. Real mad. The Washington media -- that only grudgingly waded in the multiple Clinton scandals -- jumped all over the "Angry John" disclosure. The implication is that McCain is just too mean to be president.
Why the voters -- who didn't give a rip about Monicagate, Filegate, Travelgate, Cigargate, Paulajonesgate, Chinaspygate, I-didn't-inhalegate, draftdodgergate and all the other Clintongates -- would give a hoot whether McCain has a bad temper, I don't know.
Even McCain's political opponents concede he's a decent, passionate guy who has proven his loyalty and love for the country in ways few of us ever could. The man was in a North Vietnamese prison for five years, a lot of the time being tortured. I think that entitles him to be a bit angry.
What the national media isn't reminding people is that McCain has forgiven his Vietnamese captors. How mean can you be if you forgive an enemy that tormented you for five years?
I have to admit a bias in favor of the senator. I think he's a true American hero at a time when there aren't many of them around. Sure, the Vietnam War was dumb, but McCain didn't weasel out of it by pulling strings to join the National Guard. You get the sense that if McCain had decided he was against the war, he would have stood up and said so. He wouldn't have sniveled around trying to avoid the draft while maintaining his future political viability.
My dad went to Vietnam because, as an Air Force pilot his entire career, he felt he was obligated to do so. (Another school of thought is that he just wanted to get away from my unruly brothers and I for a year. "Sorry, boys, I've got to go to a war or something.")
In any case, he was forced to fly a C-47 gunship, which is the same funky kind of plane Humphrey Bogart does not get on in the last scene of "Casablanca," except the gunship had several nasty-looking machine guns sticking out the door and windows. Piloting was hairy work because those planes flew low and got shot at a lot.
After my dad's war tour, he was assigned to Camp Smith in Halawa where he was awarded the Silver Star for doing something dangerously heroic in Vietnam that he never felt compelled to tell us boys about. (Years later, when I realized what he had done, I was retroactively proud of him.)
The man who decorated my dad was Adm. John McCain, Sen. John McCain's father, who was head of Pacific operations during the war.
I mentioned that to Sen. McCain when he dropped by the news building while campaigning for congressional candidate Orson Swindle. By then, both of our fathers had passed away and he seemed to appreciate the historical footnote, how a strange war in a tiny country could briefly bring two families together.
So, yeah, I like John McCain. He's a real guy. Real guys get mad. But this campaign to brand him as some hothead should make everyone angry.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
The Honolulu Lite online archive is at:
https://archives.starbulletin.com/lite