The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Key to Understanding John McCain

After his well noted remark about being "tested" in the Cuban Missile Crisis, McCain is back at it today. I guess no one pulled him aside and pointed out the nonsensicalness of his attempt to “use” this international incident to win votes. Today he reiterated how his role in that crisis demonstrates why he should be President. His role was to sit in his fighter jet on the deck of the USS Enterprise, waiting for the command to roll. That was quite a “test” of leadership. Does he not know the difference between a “leader” and a “follower”? As you may see from my lengthy criticisms of McCain, I waver back and forth trying to decide if he is intentionally deceptive or if he is often confused. I decline to say he is unintelligent, and I don’t want to think he is purposefully misleading us. This leaves me only with his confusion. But I have come up with another, maybe better option. I had two “insights” this week that seem to synchronize. A comment in a book I’m reading leaped off the page (Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy). The author, Susan Griffin, makes a distinction between information and knowledge. She said: " [There is a] difference between information and knowledge. . . . Lacking stories, frames, concepts, histories, discussions, a background through which significance can be felt, information descends easily into a free fall of nonsensical associations. . . . [For example] it is possible to use the word freedom like a rallying call for a football team, without any irony, as a rationale for depriving other citizens of their rights. In this usage, freedom loses its meaning entirely." (p. 149). McCain and Palin are full of these rally calls of "nonsensical associations." When Obama "nuances" his explanations, he is, as Griffin would say it, turning information into meaningful "understanding carefully woven from knowledge." How does this apply to my problem in understanding John McCain? I think he lacks an inclination to supplement information with knowledge. I’m sure McCain is intelligent enough to know that his role in the Cuban Missile Crisis was not a “test of leadership.” So by trumpeting it, was he being loose with the facts (a common form of dishonesty), or was he confused? I expect Griffin would say his assertion is an example of “information” presented without the supportive context of “knowledge.” I don’t think McCain was trying to "deceive" prospective voters, unless he practices self-deception--after all, who could be deceived by such an obviously senseless comparison. I think that he was simply practicing “words without meaning” because the voters he is trying to reach are those who are most comfortable with this type of argumentation. And here is where my other “insight” steps forward. I can excuse dishonesty as self-deception. I can also let McCain off the hook of being “confused” by applying a remark someone made to me, namely “when it comes right down to it, voters act on emotion.” McCain, uses “information” to serve his maverick impulses. With a conscience untroubled by the disconnect between information and knowledge, and a personality that views leadership as “loyalty,” he taps into an emotion. The emotion is “pride” and “fear”--two sides of the same coin. His message to the voters is, “I personify loyalty, determination, and heroism." But without appropriate context such supporting words as “hero,” “country first,” “testing,” “maverick” become meaningless servants of prideful emotion. And from the “fear” side of the emotion coin McCain adds “socialism,” “terrorism,” “Rev. Wright,” “surrender,” “inexperience.” Like a good speaker, McCain knows his audience. McCain is not deceptive; that is just another word without “meaning.“ And he is not just childishly confused. He simply speaks a different language--the language of emotion. When you compare emotion to nuance, you should recognize the real enemy of our country. In a few days we will find out whether McCainspeak is the dominant American language, or whether we are tired of meaningless verbiage emitted by our Presidents. Some would say I should stop trying to be so kind and just call it as it is. Bush, McCain, Rove, Palin, et. al. are lying s.o.b.’s. Sometimes I feel that way. But I don’t want to risk sinking into cranky cynicism. Let’s just say I have strong nuanced reasons to think McCain is problematic, and the “information” spit out by the McCain machine concerning Obama is meaningless emotion without knowledge, in the Susan Griffin sense. The hopeful sign is that many Republicans are recognizing this. If McCain loses, it will be because of a combination of Obama’s more steady and “hopeful” vision and the recognition by many Republicans (like Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, etc.) that our nation deserves better than nasty, country-dividing leadership that insults our intelligence with senseless rhetoric in these critical times.