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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 12, 2008 / 9 Sivan 5768

McCain's executive edge

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Think of it! Since early 2007, ambitious politicians have cluttered up the news with their campaigns for the presidency. Giants, such as Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, have tantalized us with the possibility that America could, under their leadership, become the new Athens. Finally, three months ago, the field was reduced to three candidates, and now it is down to two. Usually the last leg of a presidential campaign begins after Labor Day. From all I can tell, the last leg of Campaign '08 is already under way. Every day until Election Day, Nov. 4, the American people are going to be assailed by the two candidates' clever rhetorical sallies, shocking exposes, pratfalls and all the other cheap tricks that contribute to a candidate's presidential campaign. Is the thing possible? Will anyone still be paying attention come November?


Half the American people do not vote, and after this marathon campaign, that number might well increase, owing to one of history's rarely noted undercurrents: sheer boredom. Yes, dissatisfaction is an undercurrent of history. That is what the Prophet Obama is relying on when he intones his mantra: "Change!" Nor is he the first presidential candidate to use this mantra. Bill Clinton relied on it in 1992. Well, boredom also might explain the electorate's yearning for "Change," and if Americans are bored after this election, their boredom will be understandable.


However, another element of history is biography, a fact agreed upon by Carlyle and Emerson. The Obama biography is brief, as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested in deriding his lack of "experience." Obama's is an interesting biography, but it does not recommend him for the presidency, not yet. Sen. John McCain's biography, by contrast, is vast, and it does indeed recommend him for the presidency.


In preparing an essay on McCain recently, I took the occasion to review the McCain biography. It revealed two things that the candidate undoubtedly will be emphasizing. The first is character. The second is management. Consider the second first, for McCain's achievements as a manager are unusual for a senator. Senators usually have little record as managers. That is why governors make superior presidential candidates. An American president has to manage the largest organization in the world. As is typical of a senator, Obama has little managerial achievement. In fact, there is only one. He organized Chicago community activists to channel money into their neighborhoods. That is not much of an achievement when compared with the achievements in McCain's biography, and Obama's community organizing put him in with some decidedly unsavory characters, for instance, the 1960s radical Bill Ayers, an unrepentant bomb-maker, and Antoin Rezko, the recently convicted con man.


McCain's management skills have yet to be publicized. After he came back from his 5 1/2 years as a POW, McCain took command of the Navy's largest squadron, a force of A-7 attack aircraft. It was the largest by a lot. Most such squadrons in those days numbered 12 to 25. McCain's numbered 75, putting him in charge of a budget of more than a billion dollars. This was during the post-Vietnam years, when Washington was cutting back on the military budget, and the McCain squadron was short on parts, maintenance crews, and even fuel. Some 25 of his aircraft were permanently disabled "hangar queens." Morale was low. In what John Lehman, secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, has called "a near miracle of leadership and management," McCain restored morale and got all 75 A-7s up and running. Fellow officers did not think it was possible, which brings us to the question of character.


After leaving Hanoi, McCain never was expected to fly again, such was the condition of his poorly treated injuries. The injuries included two broken arms, a broken leg, a broken shoulder, and the consequences of stab wounds to the groin and ankle. Navy doctors told him he never would achieve "flight status" again. In a show of exemplary fortitude, the young pilot undertook grueling physical therapy. He not only flew again but also took command of his squadron and rebuilt it. Then he became Navy liaison to the Senate, where, by working with hawkish Republicans and Democrats, he helped reverse the decline of the military and lay the foundation for the Reagan military buildup that bankrupted the USSR.


In McCain's biography, we see leadership, managerial skills, an ability to work with senators on both sides of the aisle, and a vigilance about national security that we do not see in his opponent. McCain will not need the cheap tricks of a presidential campaign to win on Election Day. His biography will be sufficient.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.

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