-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
>>Urban Legend has it that WashPost reporters are
"CIA fronts". <<
There may be a dynamic going on to "break up"
traditional MindControl circuits in this Bush-McCain
race. Bush is the real Mind Control empire candidate,
IMHO. Notice the "Hothead" thread in this Newsweek
(WP front) article. However by the end of the
article you can see that MC thoughtforms are breaking up.
Conclusion: Watch the process; not the personalities.
Alfred
=====
Senator Hothead
In the cloakroom, John McCain won't suffer fools and
lets
them know it. How he plays by the Washington
rules�and
how he doesn't.
By Evan Thomas
Newsweek, February 21, 2000
Of the 55 republicans in the U.S. Senate, only four
support John McCain for
president. Most of the rest�39 in all, with two more
signing on last
week�back George W. Bush. Why can't McCain win the
votes of his own
colleagues? To explain, a Republican senator tells
this story: at a GOP
meeting last fall, McCain erupted out of the blue at
the respected Budget
Committee chairman, Pete Domenici, saying, "Only an
a�hole would put
together a budget like this." Offended, Domenici
stood up and gave a
dignified, restrained speech about how in all his
years in the Senate, through
many heated debates, no one had ever called him
that. Another senator might
have taken the moment to check his temper. But
McCain went on: "I wouldn't
call you an a�hole unless you really were an
a�hole." The Republican
senator witnessing the scene had considered
supporting McCain for
president, but changed his mind. "I decided," the
senator told NEWSWEEK,
"I didn't want this guy anywhere near a trigger."
Domenici softened the story, denying that
McCain had used the word "a�hole." But
one of McCain's own aides ruefully said
with a laugh, "He may have used stronger
language." McCain's reputation as a hothead
in the Senate is well established. Last week
GOP senators were furiously spinning to
reporters�off the record, as usual�that
their colleague from Arizona is too impatient
and impetuous to be president. They argued
that he would divide the Republican Party and, if
elected, fail to motivate
lawmakers to enact his agenda. McCain's loyal band
of congressional
defenders scoffed at this line of argument. "He's
not running for Senate
majority leader, he's running for president as a
reformer," said Sen. John
Kerry, a Democrat and fellow Vietnam veteran. "Lots
of presidents have a
temper. Sometimes Congress needs a swift kick."
The Maverick From the Right
McCain is a free-market conservative but not a
predictable one. His rhetoric is more
middle-of-the-road than his voting record, and
he is willing to work with Democrats.
Where McCain Stands on the Issues
Abortion
Strong anti-abortion voting
record, but wobbly in his public
comments. No litmus test for
Supreme Court choice.
Taxes
Wants to cut taxes by $238
billion, but less than half as much
as Bush, and offers far fewer
breaks for the rich.
Environment
Talks like a Teddy Roosevelt
conservationist and wants more
fuel-efficient cars. But voting
record not green.
Defense
More money for missile defense
and soldier's pay, but tough on
pork. Would have sent combat
troops to Kosovo.
Education
Wary of federal control, favors
experimenting with "vouchers" to
help poor attend private schools.
Gun Control
Opposed waiting period for guns
and assault-weapon ban, but
favors trigger locks and
background checks.
McCain has avoided harsh media scrutiny, and some
senators are just plain
jealous of his friendly relations with reporters.
"He says things that would get
us [negative] headlines, but he gets a freebie,"
groused one lawmaker.
Nonetheless, McCain's temperament is a campaign
issue that remains to be
explored. His 13 years in the U.S. Senate provide a
revealing template for
assessing McCain's ability to deal with others. The
insurgent candidate can be
winning when he wants to be, but he does not suffer
fools�and the fact that
senators can behave foolishly is not a complete
defense for a style that can be
a little too blunt.
To a certain and necessary degree, the U.S. Senate
is built on insincerity and
artifice. The elaborate rituals of senatorial
courtesy help to paper over regional
and ideological differences and soothe competing
egos. McCain, however,
has no patience with pretense, nor does he claim to.
Senators are not used to
having their intelligence or integrity challenged by
another senator. "Are you
calling me stupid?" Sen. Chuck Grassley once
inquired during a debate with
McCain over the fate of the Vietnam MIAs, according
to a source who was
present. "No," replied McCain, "I'm calling you a
f�-ing jerk!" (Grassley and
McCain had no comment.)
McCain has always chafed at the go-along, get-along
culture of Congress. In
his first months as a senator in 1987, he was named
as a member of the
so-called Keating Five, a group of senators who were
accused of intervening
with federal regulators on behalf of Charles
Keating, an S&L kingpin accused
of fraud. McCain got off with a mild rebuke from the
Senate Ethics
Committee, but the experience left him bitter and
wary of being seen as a tool
of special interests.
He takes money from lobbyists and fronts for local
interests just like any other
senator. "He's hustling the same guys the rest of
'em are," said one veteran
Washington lobbyist. "No more, no less." But he can
be unpredictable. In
1993 his fellow senator from Arizona, Dennis
DeConcini, was putting through
a bill to build a $198 million federal courthouse in
Phoenix. McCain decided
the courthouse was too expensive, and shocked his
fellow Arizona lawmaker
by offering an amendment to cut the funding roughly
in half. A McCain aide
heard DeConcini turn to Sen. Dale Bumpers and
mutter, "How would you
like to have a f---ing colleague like that?"
(DeConcini says he does not recall
the incident and doesn't use "four-letter words.")
McCain cannot abide long-windedness. When certain
champion talkers like
Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Kay Bailey Hutchison start
to hold forth, McCain
will "pop out his tongue, lick his lips, clench his
jaw and start snapping that
rubber band he plays with," says a former Commerce
Committee staffer.
Bored at Commerce Committee hearings, McCain reads
newspaper clips.
When testimony runs long, chairman McCain has been
known to drop the
gavel and walk out of the hearing room. He demands
straight talk from
lobbyists as well as other lawmakers. When a large
telephone company urged
him to vote for the 1996 telecommunications bill, he
told a visiting delegation,
"You want me to vote for this bill because it's good
for your company, right?"
"No, no," responded a company spokesman, "it's
because we really believe in
universal phone access." "Oh, come on," snapped
McCain, and terminated
the meeting. (He voted against the bill.) The
lobbyists were baffled. "Most
congressmen want to hear arguments about why
legislation would be good
for the country," said one of the lobbyists. "But
McCain's attitude is, 'I'll be
the judge of that'."
McCain gets along with the Senate Republican
leadership about as well as a
rebellious teenager does with strict parents. He has
a bipartisan streak that
doesn't sit well with the GOP true believers. McCain
is generally conservative
and against government regulation, but not always:
his bill to regulate the
tobacco industry would have raised taxes by $500
billion. His well-publicized
crusade to reform the campaign finance laws is
highly threatening. The leaders
deeply resent his attacks on pork-barrel spending,
which they regard as a
necessary tool to win the votes of lawmakers. McCain
employs a staffer
known as the "ferret" to find and expose pork-barrel
provisions tucked away
in major legislation. No one is immune. McCain
recently attacked Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott for wanting to spend $370
million on a helicopter
carrier that, McCain charged, the Navy does not need
or want. Lott, whose
home state of Mississippi will build the carrier,
shot back that the Navy did
indeed ask for the carrier. But a confidential memo
surfaced in which Lott's
staff instructed the Navy to request funding for the
ship. McCain shows little
respect for the majority leader. McCain's aide
describes watching his boss's
patience rapidly expire at meetings in Lott's office
as various senators drone
on. "McCain will start to go 'yup, yup, yup,' then
just walk out of the meeting
before it's over."
Impatient with the minutiae and drudgery of
legislating, McCain is "closer to
Reagan than Clinton in his grasp of details," says a
former aide. He is well
versed on foreign affairs and defense, less so on
domestic policy. "He may not
care deeply about re-authorizing the Fisheries Act,"
says an aide, "but he is a
hands-on committee chairman." He knows how to win
over staffers and
colleagues with playful insults, though sometimes he
goes a little too far.
During the debate over the telecommunications bill,
Sen. Ernest Hollings, the
top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, once goofed
and referred to the
"RBOCs" (Regional Bell Operating Companies) as
"Reeboks." McCain
couldn't resist and cracked, "Next thing you know,
we'll have Nikes and
Adidas up here." Hollings looked miffed, his dignity
wounded. ("I don't mind
the kidding," he told NEWSWEEK.) McCain does not
like to be mocked
himself. During the debate over his tobacco bill in
1998, Domenici held up an
intricate diagram designed to show that McCain
wanted to create a vast
government bureaucracy to regulate smoking. "That's
chickens--t," seethed
McCain.
He may be learning to hold his tongue. During the
debate over
campaign-finance reform, his opponents would "go to
the floor and try to bait
him, three and four at a time," recalled Sen. Fred
Thompson of Tennessee.
"He never lost his cool." And McCain is hardly the
only senator with a
temper. "Plenty of senators cork off at the elevator
operators or staff. The
only difference is that McCain corks off at them,"
observes Kerry. McCain
does not hold grudges. A prominent Arizona
politician recalled getting an
angry phone call from McCain after criticizing him
in a speech. "We're
finished!" McCain exploded. The politician
apologized. "Sorry's not good
enough!" McCain yelled. The man held the phone away
while McCain ranted
on. But when he put the receiver back to his ear,
McCain was asking him to
dinner.
Senator Thompson predicts McCain's Senate colleagues
will be similarly
eager to make peace if McCain gets nominated and
elected. "There will be a
rapid reconciliation," says Thompson. At the weekly
lunch of the Senate
caucus last Tuesday, "the mood was funereal," said
Sen. Chuck Hagel of
Nebraska, who, with Thompson, is one of McCain's
four Senate backers for
president (the other two are Jon Kyl of Arizona and
Mike DeWine of Ohio).
Many senators signed on with Bush when he looked
like a sure bet. Now
they're not so sure. Typically, McCain is in no
great rush to win them over.
Given the anti-Washington mood of voters, McCain
would rather be seen as
a reformer and a maverick than as a creature of the
U.S. Senate. As his
colleagues will tell you, that's no pose.
With Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff
� 2000 Newsweek, Inc.
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