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Whither McCain Goeth ...

Timothy NoahPosted Wednesday, April 26, 2000, at 5:17 PM ET

"I think it is fair to say that they won the war and lost the peace."--John McCain on what the Associated Press called his first (but Sydney Schanberg insists was his second) return trip to Vietnam. Quoted in the March 11, 1985, issue of U.S. News & World Report.

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"They won the war but lost the peace."--John McCain on his eighth return trip to Vietnam. Quoted in the April 25, 2000, issue of Salon.

Chatterbox doesn't really blame John McCain for not having something new to say every time he revisits Vietnam with reporters in tow. But he does wonder why the press continues to regard these visits as news. In what is billed as a commemoration of the 25^th anniversary of the Vietnam War's end (but seems more like a commemoration of the 15^th anniversary of McCain's 1985 visit with Walter Cronkite), McCain is this week touring Vietnam on NBC's nickel with Matt Lauer of the Today show and Christopher Matthews of Hardball. Apparently Jake Tapper of Salon is there, too (he's filing daily), along with Greg Myre and Tini Tran of the Associated Press, Tom Mintier of CNN, Patrick McMahon of USA Today, Howard Fineman of Newsweek, and no doubt a few others who haven't yet been heard from. Even assuming that one or two of these folks didn't go to Hanoi expressly to cover McCain's trip, that seems excessive. NBC News and its cable outlets devoted so much airtime to McCain's candidacy that reporters riding the Straight Talk Express began to wonder whether McCain was a subsidiary of General Electric. But at least McCain was a candidate then. Though the entourage has thinned somewhat, reporters continue to trail McCain as he Returns to the Senate, Returns to South Carolina (click here to read Mickey Kaus' excellent analysis of McCain's Confederate flag apology), and now, Returns to 'Nam. Perhaps it's time they formed a support group.

[Update, April 27: In today's New York Daily News, Mitchell Fink reports that Roger Simon of U.S. News & World Report, David Hume Kennerly of Time, and Tucker Carlson of Talk are also in McCain's Vietnam entourage. Also, today's New York Times carries a Hanoi-datelined piece by Mark Landler about McCain's April 26 visit to the Hoa Lo prison. (The Page One photo "reefering" this story is a Reuters pickup.) Chatterbox wants to know: Where the hell is National Public Radio?]

[Update, April 27, later that day: Also in McCain's Vietnam entourage are Richard Cohen of the Washington Post and Jay Carney of Time magazine. Also, a correction: Christopher Matthews is not traveling with McCain in Vietnam, and there will be no Hardball broadcast featuring McCain in Saigon. (Apparently, it's been canceled.) Finally, there is no truth to the rumor that 20/20 will tonight air live from the Hanoi Hilton a McCain interview with ABC News special correspondent Donato "the Fisherman" Dalrymple.]

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

COMMENTS

Reader Response from The Fray:

The culture's been recycling the bromides of the U.S. antiwar movement for 25 years, and with particularly irritating intensity in the runup to the anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Did you ever complain? If so, I missed it. John McCain repeats a simple if poorly understood truth--that we won the war and lost the peace--and you're already bored to death.

--John Taylor

(To reply, click here.)

Can we really blame the press for falling in love with McCain and not falling out of it just because he quit campaigning? John McCain offered something really new, at least in the personality dept., for the first time in years. He didn't expect the press to serve as intermediaries in his schemes to fool the American public (as George W. and Gore have), which they naturally hate; nor was he desperate for their attention, like Bradley was. His language was lucid, eloquent, and friendly, even when it made little sense (e.g. his aphorism on Vietnam). He looked amiable in jeans. And, as far as anyone can tell, he meant everything he said, and said only what he meant. As long as the news continues to follow around McCain, I'll be a little more willing to follow the news.

--George

(To reply, click here.)

Do any of the reporters in that gaggle of press that surrounds McCain wherever he goes, especially now on his trip to Vietnam, ever question what he was doing prior to being imprisoned? Do they ever inquire about what it was like to bomb people or ask if he has any remorse? I bet he doesn't. Does anyone ask about his targets--were they civilians? Does anyone inquire as to whether those homes or businesses or whatever were rebuilt or whether there is still trouble with unexploded ordinance delivered by such "heroes" as McCain? To me that would be the interesting angle on the story, not hearing his old self-serving war stories yet again about how brave he was as a captive.

--Babette Grunow

(To reply, click here.)

(4/27)

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