The relevant traits of the real McCain
We elect a president by both examining his policies and evaluating his person.
We must not limit our evaluation of John McCain to the two personal characteristics of hero and maverick he highlights.
I do not dispute that he may very well be both, but I find other characteristics equally or more relevant.
He always has had an economically privileged life. As the son and grandson of high ranking naval officers, he was raised in an elite community in northern Virginia.
After divorcing his first wife, he married a very rich wife, who now provides him a lifestyle with seven homes and the economic possibility of satisfying every desire.
This kind of life experience provides too little opportunity for understanding the life needs of middle class and poor Americans.
His educational opportunities have always been guaranteed. As the son and grandson of naval admirals, his acceptance in the Naval Academy at Annapolis was assured, with an elite education at no tuition.
He seems to have taken it so much for granted that he graduated near the bottom of his class.
Nevertheless, after the Vietnam War, he was admitted to the prestigious Naval War College that qualified him for later naval promotion.
Can he understand the struggle and the cost for the average young American to qualify for and gain a higher education?
A family experience, education and professional career all circumscribed by the military tends to skew his perception of his world.
He has never recognized, for instance, that the Vietnam War in which he served and heroically suffered was a colonialist war we took over from a defeated France and that we too were then defeated by a guerrilla army as much nationalist as it was communist.
Can we now trust a person as president who looks at our world - e.g. Iraq, Iran, N. Korea and Russia - through a militaristic lens which may tend to skew his present perceptions as much as it has his recognition of our past flawed military ventures? I fear not!
James E. Will
Elk Grove Village