There are a several of items in this week's Newsweek cover story on John McCain which are, well, disturbing and telling:
As an angry toddler, he would hold his breath until he passed out (his parents' cure was to drop him fully clothed into a bathtub of icy water).
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According to Robert Timberg's "The Nightingale's Song," McCain's nicknames at (Episcopal High School) were "Punk," "Nasty" and "McNasty." A classmate described him as a "tough, mean little f–––er." Episcopal had borrowed from state military schools the sobriquet "rat" to describe first-year students at the mercy of upperclassmen hazing. McCain writes: "My resentment, along with my affected disregard for rules and school authorities, soon earned me the distinction of 'worst rat'." ... "I acted like a jerk," McCain writes. McCain came close to "bilging"—getting kicked out—but seemed to know exactly how far he could go. He graduated fifth from the bottom of his class.
Choosing naval aviation, he was at best an average pilot, a daredevil, "kick-the-tires and light-the-fire" type who sacrificed careful preparation for more time at the O Club bar.
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The lore of "Senator Hothead," as McCain has been dubbed over the years, is considerable. McCain is widely reported to have yelled profanities at senators and even shoved one or two (including the late Strom Thurmond, a feisty nonagenarian at the time of the alleged incident). After McCain used an obscenity to describe Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa to his face in 1992, Grassley did not speak to McCain for more than a year. ("That's all water over the dam," Grassley says.) McCain has reportedly learned to control his temper; still, there are moments when he cannot or does not. Last spring, at a closed-door meeting of senators and staff, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas tried to amend the immigration bill to make ineligible convicted felons, known terrorists and gang members. Agitated that any attempt to amend the bill would jeopardize its slim chance of passage (ultimately, the bill failed), McCain snapped, "This is chickens–––." Cornyn shot back that McCain shouldn't come parachuting in off the presidential-campaign trail at the last minute and start making demands. "F––– you," said McCain, in front of about 30 witnesses. (A Cornyn aide says that the Texas senator was unbothered by the incident. "I think he just thought, 'Here's John being a jerk'," says the aide, who declined to be identified speaking for Cornyn.)
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McCain may have a bit of a vindictive streak. "John has an enemies list longer than Nixon's," says a former Pentagon official who did not want to get on it. "And, unlike Nixon, McCain really does try to get you." After the Boeing scandal, three Air Force officials who quit all found that one of McCain's top aides had quietly spread word around the defense community that anyone hiring them would risk the senator's displeasure. And he still has an impetuosity that is nervous-making to old foreign-policy hands. One of them, a former high official in several Republican administrations who occasionally advises McCain (and wishes to continue to) worries to NEWSWEEK about McCain's "quirky" judgment and his unwillingness to change his mind once it's made up.
Except for the actual military service, McCain's the same cocky, petulant man-child as our current boy king. Take the name out and this reads just like a character bio of George Bush.