How John McCain brought the world back from the brink

Oh for Pete's sake, this is just childish.

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Republican John McCain told voters in this key electoral state Tuesday he was personally tested by the same kind of crisis that Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph Biden warned Barack Obama will almost certainly face if elected president.

McCain recalled being ready to launch a bombing run during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which Biden said over the weekend tested a new President John F. Kennedy and was the template for the kind of "generated crisis" the 47-year-old Obama would face within six months of taking office.

"I was on board the USS Enterprise," McCain, a former naval aviator, said in the capital city of Harrisburg. "I sat in the cockpit, on the flight deck of the USS Enterprise, off of Cuba. I had a target. My friends, you know how close we came to a nuclear war."

As the crowd of several thousand began to swell with cheers and applause, he added with dramatic effect: "America will not have a president who needs to be tested. I've been tested, my friends."

I read Thirteen Days and I don't remember Robert Kennedy mentioning what an important role an obscure Navy pilot played during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but that was a long time ago.  I am reading Michael Dobbs' One Minute to Midnight now and so far McCain's name hasn't come up, but I'll check the index later.  Maybe there are pages devoted to him and I'll find out that President Kennedy was still on the fence about invading until he radioed McCain in his plane on the deck of the Enterprise and asked him, "Do we send in the Marines, Lieutenant, or wait to see if the Soviet ships turn back?  Your call."

Maybe I'll get to the part where Khruschev turns to his aides and says, "Comrades, I believe we must withdraw our missiles.  Intelligence reports that the Americans have a hotshot young Navy bomber pilot who has been tested by this crisis and so is worthy to become president two generations from now.  We must not cross this man."

Does McCain believe that the fate of the world was in his hands in October of 1962?   If he was tested during those thirteen days, then so were thousands and thousands of American servicemen and women, almost all of whom I'd bet never had it occur to them that what they were going through was somehow on a par with what the President and his advisors were going through.  Probably impossible to find more than one or two others who are that vain.

He was tested.

Headline on the wire story I got this from was, "McCain reminds Biden he was tested in crisis."

Should have been "McCain reminds country he's a vain old man with delusions of grandeur."

He was tested.

McCain was tested, a lot more recently.  Last month, in fact.  When the financial world was melting down and threatening to take the country's economy with it, John McCain ran around in circles yelling, Do this!  No, do that!  No, do both!  Wait!  Do neither!  That was his big test this campaign.  He failed.

Sitting in the cockpit of a plane that did not launch forty-six years ago this week, waiting for his orders from a President who was being tested proves only that he was alive and in the Navy at that time.

He was tested.

The vainest man to have run for President since Aaron Burr.

But he did us a service with his vanity this time.

He reminded people that a young and relatively inexperienced President whose political opponents thought callow and frivolous could be tested in a crisis and come through it.

Comments

[Mike]

"Mr. President, if we bomb Cuba, the Russians there might ... "

"I know, Bob, but consider this. We send a bomber over, but the pilot stalls and flames out before he gets too close to the island. We've shown resolve, but not provoked a response."

"Brilliant, Mr. President. So you've instructed the pilot to do that?"

"No need, Bob. No need."

[Anne D.]

If this a test to be president, literally hundreds of thousands of armed service members passed the test, also. I noticed the selfish way he didn't include the others there with him. I really can't stand the immaturity of McCain. This article by you made me laugh. I found your site by googling if the story of McCain's 13 Days in October was true. Now there will be no end to it.

[Rana]

I found myself wondering how many people are going to think he was talking about Star Trek, what with the Enterprise and all. ;)

But, yeah, McCain really ought to avoid all references to JFK - Obama's far more like Kennedy than he is (young, handsome, charismatic, has the youth vote, has stylish wife and adorable children, has white bigots in an uproar, promises change, is in danger of assassination, etc. etc.)

But then, McCain's so self-centered he probably _does_ think that he is himself Kennedy reborn.

[actor212]

Lance, re-read that excerpt from Harrisburg again.

Lance, those people cheered a nuclear war near-miss!

[Jennifer]

He is testy.

[Michael Bartley]

McCain is a walking talking stroke and he's giving me one. Just when I think it can't possibly get any more bizarre, absurd, or sad...

[Linkmeister]

If he'd said he was tested during the fire which nearly destroyed the Enterprise I'd be impressed, but that was in 1969, not 1962.

[Ken Houghton]

He was tested during that fire&mdsash;and found wanting. (As he notes in his autobiography, as he was running away he "wondered if my career was over" or somesuch.

Mike, in the first post, summarized the McCain "experience." Shot down in enough planes to be a Reverse Ace. (Side note from a Naval Academy grad who dated a relative of my wife's: These days, they stop you from flying after your second crash—not so much because you're a poor pilot, but because the human body wouldn't survive a third ejection.)

[Linkmeister]

Ken, the fire you mention was on the Forrestal in 1967. The Enterprise fire was in 1969 after he'd left the ship.

[Jaye Lewis]

Excellent article. Well done. McCain is so egomaniacal it's startling and horrifying to this 62 year old woman. You put things into perspective with humor and mild disgust, and I appreciate that. McCain and Sarah Palin are the worst candidates for the highest office that I have EVER seen in my life...beating even Bush and Cheney. Okay, so they are the worst President and Vice President. Thank you so much!

Republican, now Democrat, for Obama.

[Batocchio]

But - but - Lance, he could have done something heroic! And following an order would have demonstrated executive experience! (Much like, um, managing a town of under 7,000 when most of the decisions are outsourced!)

Maybe like his pal Joe - the lying Lieberman, not the Plumma - McCain just wanted to claim JFK as his own, as ridiculous as that is for both of them.

For the past two weeks, McCain has not made a single significant claim that has not been deceptive if not an outright lie. He's really been utterly despicable.