John McCain literally has stormed into Washington to enter the great debate over the financial bailout. Most commentators seem focused upon whether he is helping or hindering the debate and whether or not he is there solely to aid his campaign for President.
What is more interesting to me is what these actions say about John McCain’s character – i.e., who is John McCain and what can we learn from the events of this week about how he might govern if he becomes President.
It has long been said that John McCain is a hero. I have no reason to doubt that statement based on what I have read and what I see happening in Washington. He is certainly unafraid of combat and even seems to have a sense of joy about an impending battle. I suspect he has a strong self vision that assumes that extraordinary personal effort and a strong will can and should make a difference, and that if he exerts himself in the throes of the conflict, only good things can ensue. He has leapt into the fray as if seeking to slay the dragon – the very sort of behavior one expects of a hero.
However, is this the sort of behavior one wishes in a President? Teddy Roosevelt was of a similar mindset, and for Teddy it worked well in its time. Teddy was always dashing off to solve something or other, and he did so with a genuine zest for life and for a battle over a good cause. We celebrate him for it even unto this day. When, however, after serving as President he ran again on a third party ticket, the electorate had had enough and he fared poorly. I think that a President in Teddy’s mold is only able to be effective when conditions are exactly right for a certified, club-carrying hero – at times when there is real or perceived physical danger and we need a leader who is not only unafraid to face battle, but relishes the prospect.
Other times demand that a leader of this kind step aside – those times when we need to engage in reflective thought about our goals and our future because our everyday behavior seems to have become disconnected from our basic values. Those times when a new consensus needs to develop so that we can move forward, many-voiced but united. This is such a time.
Leadership by heroic acts in times like these is antithetical to the achievement of a consensus. In times of reflection, the appropriate leader is someone who sets the rules for the debate, encourages the debate, encourages creativity, thoughtfulness and diversity of opinion, and who has the ability to synthesize a course of action from the myriad voices offering suggestions for the general betterment. He or she needs to encourage the debate, but know how to bring it to a successful conclusion so that we find common ground and move forward with confidence.
He who carries a club will not flourish in this environment and will stand in the way of the process. There are no quick, heroic solutions in these times.
In short, John McCain is simply not the man for this time. He may have been the man for some other time. He would certainly have been a better choice for the nation in 2000 and he would likely have succeeded after 9/11 in bringing us together where George Bush has not only failed us miserably in this regard, but also picked our civil liberties pocket in the process. It is hard to imagine John McCain on that Presidential plane flying erratically across our country in the minutes and hours after 9/11. He would have been in Washington or New York, and he would have been readying us for the war we should have fought, not the one we have fought.
But this is not 9/11. That was a sad time, but we need to let it go and face the reality of a society which is no longer sure of its goals and purposes. What we need now is to re-orient ourselves as to our moral vision and the very fabric of our financial and political systems. A man with a spear or a club is not the man for the helm at this time. We need a healer who can push us to, and lead us through, a constructive debate on these matters. It is not a time for cudgels.
