The skills required to be a good Admiral and a good Wife of Admiral probably don’t overlap much with the skills needed to be a good parent. To be a good Admiral you need to be a non nonsense hard ass. To be a good parent you need to say comforting things like, “That’s okay Johnny. Everyone is afraid of the dark once in a while.”
So John McCain probably started out life behind the eight ball. I’ve know people raised by parents who hold back affection and ration it out like drinking water in a life raft. I know that it can do serious damage to a child.
The damage made John McCain an order follower. He followed orders to go to Annapolis where he sucked at being a mid-shipman and he followed orders to go to flight school where he sucked at flying.
He went to Viet Nam and sucked at not being shot down and once captured he found the one thing he was pretty good at, being a prisoner. Other prisoners don’t give him very high marks but it is safe to say that I could never do what he did in Viet Nam.
Once back home he applied himself to carousing and adultery, no doubt to distract himself from the crappyness of his life up to that point. He fell in with some rich folks with a pretty daughter and got back to following orders. Run for the House. Run for the Senate. Run for President. Run, run, run.
He must have felt about to break out of being the order follower for a few weeks just prior to New Hampshire and the calamity of South Carolina. He must have felt like he could breath for once. I even liked him there for a few weeks – no wonder the press fell in love.
Karl rove put an end to that and it was back to following orders. Shut up. Wait your turn. Don’t pick Lieberman. Pick Palin. Go negative. Go more negative.
It is all terribly sad really.