Matthew Yglesias » Read The Book!

Aug 28th, 2008 at 10:17 am

Read The Book!

Faith of my Fathers

When you publish a book, you need to do publicity for the book. That consists largely of hoping to get the opportunity to talk about your book on the media. It’s a bit of a paradoxical situation, because you’re half inclined to say “well if you would just read the book, then you’d know the answer.” But of course that’s not how it’s done. You answer the question, you talk a bit, and you hope people get interested in the book. At least, that’s how most people do it. Then there’s John McCain talking to Time:

There’s a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?
Read it in my books.

I’ve read your books.
No, I’m not going to define it.

But honor in politics?
I defined it in five books. Read my books.

So in case you’re wondering about the central theme of McCain’s presidential campaign, well, you’d better read his books I guess. I wonder what would have happened if they’d asked him a difficult question like what does he mean when he talks about “victory” in Iraq.

Comments
44

Filed under: mccain, Temper,

44 Responses to “Read The Book!”

Dan Kervick Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:30 am
So in case you’re wondering about the central theme of McCain’s presidential campaign, well, you’d better read his books I guess.

Or just ask Mark Salter, who can probably answer better than Gigolo John.
An Outhouse Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:32 am
How come John McCain put a picture of two aging homosexuals ogling some young meat on the cover of his book?
Grogor Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:32 am
From McCain’s Book. “I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I’d had the ambition for a long time.”
ed Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:35 am
In truth he’s “drooling for power like a fruit bat with rabies.”
peep Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Well, to be fair to the guy, he’s not on a book tour anymore.
bigeugene Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:36 am
The Real McCain is starting to show up…he’s ornery and not particularly intelligent.

I truly enjoy watching him get agitated and try to fight down his temper. He’s so bad at it.
southpaw Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:40 am
It’s an odd response, because this is one situation where “POW!” would be an appropriate response. But I suppose McCain only discusses that experience in contexts that tend to cheapen it.
Tyro Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:42 am
The funny thing is that McCain hasn’t read the book, either.
John McCain Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:44 am
When I was staying in the Hanoi Hilton I didn’t have any books to read. You should be grateful for the opportunity to read these books.
BH Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Make sure that you read the Time magazine that Matt links to.

Prickly!
daveNYC Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:50 am
My record shows that I have put my country first and I follow the philosophy and traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

That covers a broad range of possible philosophies and traditions.

McCain comes off as a complete ass. The debates should be fun to watch. They might want to air them on 30 second delay in case he loses it and drops an f-bomb.
riffle Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:53 am
I think his campaign theme is pretty evident from that interview.

“I will put Country First like Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan because we were all prisoners of war. Now piss off.”
Jeffrey Davis Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I follow the philosophy and traditions of Abraham Lincoln

One of the most telling images of Lincoln in Herndon’s biography is the description of Lincoln’s ambition as a tireless little engine that knew no rest. Couple that with “I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I’d had the ambition for a long time.”

McCain wants to be president so that he can be president. What an honorable man to admit to having such empty ambitions.
The Golux Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Gee, do you think McCain (aka “The Gigerick” or “The Mavolo”) refuses to answer so that he doesn’t unknowingly contradict his book? What’s next, refusing to answer questions by saying, “Read the speech I gave” on such and such a date?
Dean Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:57 am
The Time interview is the interesting thing I’ve read from McCain in a long time. You get the feeling that this campaign is turning out to be a little similar to his POW experience–he’s constrained, harassed, constricted, forced to sign on to things he knows are false–the campaign as torture. There’s more than one reason he’s bringing up his POW experience at every opportunity–he’s reliving it.
north_aufzoo Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Or, as Jay Sherman once said:
north_aufzoo Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=446454727932250331&hl=en

(oh, hell. No embedded video.)
Warren Terra Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 11:20 am
As a couple of upthread commenters have noted, McCain didn’t write his five books and maybe didn’t read them, so this question was unfair.

Given that the theme of McCain’s campaign seems to be “A Former POW Can Do No Wrong” it’s odd they compare him to Lincoln, TR, and Reagan, and not to the President who was a POW - George Washington. Although it occurs to me that the other George W spent a night in jail; maybe they should make that comparison.
Led Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Yikes. He sounds like Bill Belichick being interviewed. Maybe he should start wearing a ripped hoody at his campaign stops.
right Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Truly bizarre interview. His campaign staff must be going nuts.
David B. Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Dude, if it takes 5 books . . .

What is this, transcendential deduction?
carsick Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
It ain’t about honor. He’s been clear. It’s about his ambition.

Worth The Fighting For, p. 373, published September 2002:

“…I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president…”
Adam Villani Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Andrew Jackson was also held as a POW, as a teenager during the Revolutionary War.
24AheadDotCom Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
McCain told two Time hacks to stop wasting his time, and MattY is stupid enough to think that reflects badly on McCain?

The bottom line is that those two hacks (Carney and Scherer) as well as MattY don’t have any concept of real reporting. They’re all just establishment hacks who couldn’t come up with a real question, much less have the “guts” to ask it.
Persia Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
McCain comes off as a complete ass. The debates should be fun to watch. They might want to air them on 30 second delay in case he loses it and drops an f-bomb.

I am half-convinced that the best way to win this election is just to give McCain an open microphone.
charlotte Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
John McLosing It = Leona Helmsley — What a bizarre response to a question he shoulda coulda seized on and run with. Cranky pants.
Innocent Bystander Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
If John McCain’s POW experience is the defining aspect of his campaign…shouldn’t this period of his life be fully opened and discussed? And not from a hagiography written with his Presidential ambition in mind?

I read this link posted on HuffPo today….I think I understand why John McCain wants to use his POW experience, but doesn’t really want to make it something that should be really investigated.

http://hope2012.wordpress.com/2008/07/26/songbird-mccain-the-evidence-in-his-own-words-his-fellow-veterans-and-his-captors/

From the link-EXCERPT: from 1992 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA’s:

SANTOLI: But on the Senate side, we had one person standing in the way of getting in positions that would have been very tough on government bureaucrats who didn’t tell the truth. And that one person was Sen. John McCain.
Cpl. BOB DUMAS, U.S. Army (Ret.): He didn’t want nobody to check his background because a lot of the POWs that was in the camps said he was a collaborator of the enemy. He gave the enemy the information they wanted.

Dr. JAMES LUCIER, former U.S. Senate Chief of Staff: But We do know that when he was there [in the Vietnamese prison], he cooperated with the communist news services in giving interviews there, ah, not flattering to the United States.

USRY: Information shows that he made over 32 tapes of propaganda for the Vietnamese government. Certainly, you do what you need to do to stay alive. Nobody would fault anybody for that. But there comes a point in time when enough is enough.

REP: DORNAN: They made those transcriptions, and in the transcriptions, I heard a POW who heard them comin’ into his cell and said, “Oh, my God, is that Admiral McCain’s son? Is that the admiral’s son? Is that Johnny — telling us that our principal targets are schools, orphanages, hospitals, temples, churches?” That was Jane Fonda’s line. Where are those transcriptions? Believe me — they’re in the archives of the museum, the bragging military phony museum in Hanoi. McCain could not have wanted those [to] turn up in the middle of a presidential race. He knows that. I know that, and a few other people know that, and that’s why he went against Bob Dole’s legislation.

DUMAS: And he didn’t want nobody looking into his background in that camp, what went on in that camp. That stuff is still classified so nobody can see it. And he just had it classified forever, so nobody’ll ever look at it.

LUCIER: That he was given special treatment and was put in a room with two other defectors who were later given special treatment. Although I will say to his credit he refused to be repatriated as a result.

REP: DORNAN: This sounds so good at first. McCain was offered the chance to come home. They called him the “Prince.” And he could have. But nobody ever takes that one step beyond that. If John … Admiral John McCain II … “Junior” … if his son, a lieutenant senior grade, had accepted this princely status and come home in 1967 while the others would sit there for five years, what would the Navy have done, with the son of an admiral who opted to get special treatment and come home? No Navy career. No House seat. No Senate seat. It would have been the end of his career. [Edit.] And they were offering him this chance to go home in one of three groups that came home in ‘68.

This is really something that needs to be exposed…I think I’m pretty up on McCain, but I was really surprised to read this.
Anthony Damiani Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Man doesn’t recognize a softball when he’s lobbed one?
Craig Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Softball question in whose universe? It was a trap question that McCain has likely heard before. It’s obvious from the interviewer’s next question about honor in politics.

Yes, he can be cranky, but he can smell a BS question coming down the pike.
Julie Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Trapped into a question about honor in politics? BS to talk about honor in politics? Why shouldn’t this e something he can answer?
a1 Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Trapped into a question about honor in politics? BS to talk about honor in politics? Why shouldn’t this be something he can answer?

Yeah, no kidding. If you’re so worried that your idea of honor will be contradicted by a book you ostensibly wrote, maybe you don’t know (or care to know) what honor really means in the first place.
robert Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Matt, your wish is granted:
Full Transcript

It’s a peaceful and stable country now.

It is? But you wouldn’t say you’ve achieved victory now?

Yes, I would say that the surge is succeeding and we are winning.

But we haven’t reached victory yet?

I can say again that the surge has succeeded and we are winning.

But it’s not yet at a point where significant draw-down of troops…

That’s the view of General Petraeus… General Petraeus’ strategy has succeeded. Senator Obama said it wouldn’t, couldn’t, and has denied that it has succeeded and we will be able to withdraw as we have in every time in history when counterinsurgency succeeds.

Just going back into biography a little bit…

I’ve described thousands of times what victory is, and we’ve succeeded, we are winning, and we will come home with honor and victory, not in defeat.
Craig Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Trapped into a question about honor in politics? BS to talk about honor in politics? Why shouldn’t this e something he can answer?

Don’t play dumb….unless you are.
Chi Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
If John McCain had a blog, it wouldn’t have a full feed. Yet another reason he is unfit for the presidency.
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Matt Yglesias

Read The Book!

44 Responses to “Read The Book!”

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