Who Is the Real McCain?

It's fascinating to watch the media when it affixes a label or otherwise assigns an identity to a politician and, whether true or not, it goes on to become the prevailing conventional wisdom. In the case of former Vice President Al Gore in 2000, the mainstream press was perfectly content to adopt right-wing spin and brand Gore the man who claimed to have "invented the Internet," despite the fact that even a sliver of research would have shown that Gore said no such thing.

Likewise, Arizona Sen. John McCain continues to enjoy the fawning of talk show hosts -- of all political stripes -- and the rote description of him as a straight-shooting maverick, notwithstanding a record that shows him displaying anything but those qualities. On the contrary, rather than being a true outside-the-beltway interloper butting heads with the average, cynical pol, McCain's conduct since 2000 alone shows him to be a consummate politician, whose loyalties, positions and commitments shift with whatever political imperative happens to be temporarily in his face.

Let's get something out of the way right up front: As a veteran -- to hell with that -- as an American, I yield to nobody in my respect for the guts and heroism shown by the younger McCain during his nightmarish captivity in Hanoi in the Vietnam War. Short of giving one's life, there isn't much more a person can do for their country than endure the physical and mental hell survived by McCain during that lengthy imprisonment.

McCain's military past also included another brush with near death when, while stationed on the USS Forrestal in 1967, a rocket from an F-4 Phantom was accidentally launched across the deck, starting a massive fire that killed 134 sailors. The rocket struck McCain's airplane, and he narrowly escaped the resulting explosion, while still suffering shrapnel wounds to his legs and chest. For his military service, McCain received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Regardless of our thoughts about that war, all of us should hold McCain, the young Navy aviator, in unwavering esteem for that part of his biography.

But being heroic in one long-ago facet of life, does not give any of us a permanent free pass for our actions thereafter. McCain's trial-by-fire in Vietnam ended in 1973 and, as a man who aspires to lead the free world as the U.S. president, McCain's record since his military discharge is the most relevant factor of all.

And what exactly is that record?

To be sure, with the help of a media that now behaves more like a steno pool than an investigative body, McCain continues to enjoy being described as a man who sticks to his guns and means what he says, damn the consequences -- even to the point of naming his campaign bus in the 2000 presidential primary, the "Straight Talk Express."

But even a casual observer of the latter-day McCain can't help but see a man who fails to live up to that lofty creed when the need truly exists.

The most recent example of the chameleonlike nature of his values comes in McCain's nauseating display of courting the Religious Right well in advance of the next primary season.

Lauded for a perceived maverick streak, McCain, as a 2000 presidential candidate, famously called the Rev. Jerry Falwell one of the "agents of intolerance" hurting the Republican party. But recently, as McCain has begun laying the groundwork for another White House bid, he sought to shore up his conservative credentials by going hat-in-hand to Falwell's Liberty University in early May to kiss up to him and forgive past deeds.

And it was no secret that Falwell and his merry band in the Religious Right were major players against McCain in the 2000 presidential primary season and are the same people who contributed buckets of money to George W. Bush and who actively participated in his candidacy's rapid destruction after a breathtaking win in the country's first primary in New Hampshire.