"It was a contest to see how much I could get away with, without getting thrown out," says John McCain in an interview where he is talking about his career at the U.S. Naval Academy. His pedigree with a grandfather as an admiral may have saved him from being tossed out due to his personal conduct and low academics. He was fifth from the bottom in his class.
One can only surmise at the cause of John McCain's childhood. But it is certain that his father was away at sea for many years of his childhood and that McCain was constantly moved about the country and the world as his father was moved from station to station. He attended some twenty different schools during his childhood. Feelings of abandonment by his parents, in particularly his father, may underpin his hostility toward male authority. John McCain's early childhood is marked by him being an unruly, fighting, impossible to discipline child, who turned into the unruly, fighting, impossible to discipline adult.
His statement, ""I hated the place, but I didn't mind going there," shows that the Naval Academy was a perfect venue as an outlet for his hostility toward the institution of the Navy, unexpressed childhood anger and resentment toward his father and grandfather, both Navy officers.
The Naval Academy allowed him to act out his aggressiveness without disciplining him and throwing him out. He then went on to become an "attack pilot" dropping bombs on targets in the service of his country. Aggressive military action is the perfect method for John McCain to act out his aggressive impulses. If he sees life as a continued warfare, he means it.
On the other side of the coin, his abandonment of his first wife and child after returning from Vietnam may indicate an estranged, hostile and indifferent attitude toward women, generated by a distant, cold or unaffectionate mother. At any rate, when his crippled first wife was no longer of use to him as an aspiring young man, he divorced her and married the daughter of a wealthy man. This may be a failure of affectionate attachment to his mother; thereafter, his relations with women are rather cold and manipulative.
Empathy for people or the people of this country is not a quality of John McCain. His promoting amnesty for millions of illegals has nothing to do with compassion for illegals, rather it has everything to do with pushing something undigestable down the throats of Republicans.
"The contest to see how much I could get away with," is statement about John McCain's entire career as a Republican. Every issue that expresses the core sentiments of the Republican Party, with the exception of National Defense and grudgingly abortion, John McCain derides the values of the voters of his presumptive party. Now he has copped the biggest prize of all, the Republican nomination. He will really be able to humiliate Republicans, make them kowtow to his erratic personality.
One can expect that McCain as President will use whatever means possible to keep the United States in armed conflict abroad under the umbrella of the protecting the United States. Domestically, McCain as President will promote whatever policies are counter to Republican values, that is, the agenda of the Democrats. Joe Lieberman alongside John McCain is a clear indication of the direction John McCain will go.
If Republicans think that John McCain is in anyway going to change his behavior, they are dead wrong. McCain exhibits a life-long pattern of aggressive, bullying and abusive behavior to undermine whatever institution he is in. At first it was the U.S. Naval Academy, then it was the Republican Party, and next it may be the Presidency of the United States.