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OK, deep breath: here's my personal attack on McCain.
He is not a war hero. Not in the sense most people think of when they hear the phrase.
Yesterday, I heard something very telling on NPR, which got me to thinking about this whole war hero business: McCain gave way under torture and signed a bogus confession for the North Vietnamese.
No reasonable person can blame him for that. It's understandable.
But here's what happened afterward: he confessed that he was terrified that his father would hear about it. So he decided to repent and provoke the punishment he felt he deserved.
McCain's later provocative behavior toward his captors was not about sacrificing for his country, though he had to convince himself that that was the case, in order to survive, probably. Nobody can blame him for that, either.
However, there is another way to read this story.
McCain was a CHILD in a horrific situation, terrified of displeasing his overbearing father. When he actually did break down and do something that would severely displease his father, his masochism manifested, and he decided to let the North Vietnamese symbolically take the place of his father and punish him for his "betrayal" of his father. He took the punishment because he felt unworthy of his father. It was not about betraying the abstract country. It was about betraying the concrete father.
It's a classic case for psychoanalysis. Betrayal of the father = betrayal of country. Betrayal must be punished = provoke the punishment you -- with the low self-esteem that comes from having a critical parent, and the fear of incurring the wrath of that parent -- you feel you deserve.
McCain is called a war hero. But I suspect that love of country and the desire to serve are the superficial phrases covering his deeper, probably unconscious motivation. He was acting out his childhood tragedy.
I blame the fathers who start these wars and sacrifice their children to them.
