The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations

by John McCain

Where rulers abused their people, we spoke up, we protested, we drew attention, we identified with the abused, and demanded better from the abuser. We used diplomatic and economic pressure to protect dissidents, to free political prisoners, to restrain autocrats, to get them to stop resisting change or at least modify their behavior enough to let change eventually undo them.

Not exactly an accurate description of our actions in Southeast Asia from 1945-1975, or Iran in the 1950s, or the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, or in Central America from the late 19th century onwards, or in Chile in the 1970s, or, indeed, of our relations with Native Americans ever. This idealistic blind spot was perhaps McCain’s major flaw. Perhaps it was because he needed to believe that the immense sacrifices he made during his POW imprisonment during the Vietnam War were, after all, in some noble cause. They were not. He was raining death from the sky on Vietnamese to prevent them from determining the future of their own country.

Bigger misfits haven’t been seen inside a White House since William Taft got stuck in his bathtub.

It is hard to know what to expect from President Trump, what’s a pose, what’s genuine.

It’s all a pose.