The man that U.S. Republicans will choose as their presidential nominee this year, who isn't suited to America's domestic or foreign-policy challenges, has long been a favourite of liberals in the U.S. media.

This is McCain the war hero and maverick, who has repeatedly broken with his own party to oppose his colleagues' pork-barrel spending, the U.S. torture of detainees, and drilling for oil in the pristine Arctic Natural Wildlife Refuge, and to support stem-cell research, the most significant campaign-finance reform since the Watergate era, aggressive action to curb global warming and, most recently, an expedited "path to citizenship" for America's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

In voting against U.S. President George W. Bush's ruinous tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, McCain correctly adduced that they would not be accompanied by fiscal prudence among the spendthrift Republicans who then controlled Congress. And that they were skewed to Americans least in need of tax relief. "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief," McCain said in 2001.

But there is another McCain, one who is among the least-principled major American political figures – all the more notable for how central "standing on principal" is to McCain's self regard.

To win the conservative Republican votes so critical in the primaries and caucuses this year, McCain has flip-flopped on numerous of his most "principled" stands. Those unfair tax cuts? He now favours extending them. His compassion about illegal immigrants has given way to a pledge to build walls to keep the Mexicans out. McCain has gone from opposing the repeal of Roe vs. Wade to asserting his pro-life credentials. McCain's opposition to federal subsidies for corn-based ethanol, which consumes more energy to produce than it yields, gave way to a pro-ethanol stand as the caucuses in corn-belt Iowa approached.

Much of this is standard fare in a campaign cycle in which many of the leading candidates' positions have "evolved." What's alarming is that McCain is stubbornly absolutist on the most important question of the presidential content: Iraq, and America's place in the world.

McCain is no less delusional than the Bush administration in detecting progress in Mesopotamia. Iraq still has no functioning government, no army capable of defending the nation, no oil-sharing law, and no effort at ethnic reconciliation one year after the "surge" of 30,000 additional U.S. troops and five years after the U.S.-led invasion.

"We are winning in Iraq," says McCain, who famously demonstrated the new and safer Baghdad last spring by visiting the downtown Shorja market wearing a Kevlar vest and guarded by more than 100 U.S. soldiers, two Apache gunships, and three Black Hawk helicopters. Within a day of the departure the McCain entourage, 21 merchants and workers in the Shorja market were ambushed and killed.

One needn't venture into the murky realm of psychoanalysis to grasp McCain's worldview. As they say, if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. McCain, described as third-generation navy royalty, is the son of a U.S. admiral who led the U.S. overthrow of a democratically elected government in the Dominican Republic in 1965, and the grandson of a U.S. admiral who helped eradicate local opposition to the American invasion of the Philippines at the turn of the previous century.

McCain's new theme in debates and town-hall meetings is that Americans should expect to retain a military presence in Iraq "for a 100 years," citing the continued U.S. presence in places such as Japan and Korea. McCain misses the point that America is not at war in Okinawa or Korea's 38th parallel, And that even U.S. war hawks are beginning to realize it is the mere presence of U.S. military forces that has inflamed anti-Americanism, not just in war zones but globally. It was, after all, America's military bases in Saudi Arabia that inspired Osama bin Laden to attack U.S. assets around the world.

McCain struggled in naval academy, finishing 894th out of 899 students, and was rejected by the U.S. National War College until his family intervened with the Secretary of the Navy. In active service, McCain was, by his lengthy acknowledgement in a commencement address last year, a "discipline problem" of violent disposition and frequent insubordination who came late to the task of proving himself.

For whatever reason, McCain has long since located America's greatest achievements on the field of battle. It may be a slight exaggeration to say, as liberal blogger Arianna Huffington insists, that McCain has "an ardour for war." But having jeopardized his presidential campaign by spending so much of last year in Iraq and the Senate cheerleading for an unpopular conflict suggests that McCain would like to field-marshal a war he feels he can win.

McCain's frequently touted early criticism of the Iraq war, directed at Donald Rumsfeld (but never at Bush, the only man who could fire him), reinforces the probability that McCain is not really running for president. "I'm going to be honest. I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues," he said in a 2005 interview. Which means reviving the economy and delivering universal health care don't top McCain's to-do list. The post McCain seeks is commander-in-chief; he is determined to succeed in Iraq where Bush and Rumsfeld failed.

It isn't McCain's recent statement that an Iran with nuclear ambitions should be threatened with "extinction" that's particularly disturbing. Or his twisted idea of humour at a campaign event last April in singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann." It's McCain's utter conviction that, no matter what the sentiment of the American people, he knows better. And that sounds a lot like the last seven years.

". . . it's my job to give my best estimate to the American people, no matter what the political calculations may be, as to what's the best in our nation's national security interest," McCain told host Tim Russert on Meet the Press last May in what has since become a mainstay of McCain's stump speeches.

"And I know what's best, in my mind, my experience, in my knowledge, in my inspiration, as to what's best for this country."

McCain knows that the U.S. should continue spending between $2 billion (U.S.) and $3 billion a week in prolonging America's worst foreign-policy disaster, which already has cost the Republic about $1 trillion. In his mind, victory in Iraq, and restoring America's military pride and the world's respect for his country's awesome might, transcends everything.

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He just knows. And that's why McCain is the most dangerous candidate still standing.



David Olive writes frequently about business and politics. He can be reached at: dolive@thestar.ca.



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