John Sidney McCain III may have represented the American Southwestern state of Arizona in Congress for his entire political career, but he is culturally and psychologically the product of America's Deep South and of the slave-owning, militaristic culture that his Scotch-Irish ancestors established there in colonial times.
Joseph McCain, born in Scotland in 1773, was the first in his paternal line to come to America, establishing himself in North Carolina, where he sired William Alexander McCain, presidential candidate John McCain's great-great grandfather. William Alexander made his way down to high-cotton Mississippi, where he purchased 2,000 acres of land and 52 slaves in Carroll County and established a plantation called "Teoc." He died in 1863, fighting for the Confederacy as a private in Company l, Fifth Regiment of the Mississippi Cavalry.
After the Civil War, William Alexander's son, the first John Sidney McCain, continued operating the Teoc cotton plantation, using the labor of subsistence sharecroppers who were the family's former slaves. His oldest son, John Sidney "Slew" McCain Sr., John McCain III's grandfather, attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and rose to the rank of admiral, beginning what an Oct. 17 article by Douglas A. Blackmun in the Wall Street Journal, "Two Families Named McCain," about the descendants of Teoc plantation slaves, described as "the evolution of a 19th-century cotton dynasty into one rooted in an ethic of military and national service."
The heritage of Teoc did not play an obscure or peripheral role in the life of John McCain III. Members of his family have continued to own most of the plantation's original land, and Teoc was where he lived as a child while his father, John S. McCain Jr., a future Navy admiral following in his father's footsteps, was at sea during World War II. He also visited there frequently as an adolescent. His father considered Teoc, according to Blackmun, to be "blood ground." Last spring the presidential candidate began his "Service to America Tour," the purpose of which was to introduce the country to his life story, in Mississippi.
McCain's grandfather commanded a major task force carrier group in the Pacific Theater during World War II, and his father was in charge of all U.S. forces in the Pacific during the Vietnam War. It was from them, according to his autobiography, Faith of My Fathers, written with (or by) speechwriter Mark Salter, that he imbibed the sense of "honor" that he claims as the driving force of his life. He says in the book: "The sanctity of personal honor was the only lesson my father felt necessary to impart to me."
According to scholarly work on the subject, the meaning of "honor" in Southern culture is different from the commonly understood meaning of that term, which usually involves concepts like "honesty," "fairness," and "integrity." In a "culture of honor" such as that of the South, violence is exalted as a means to maintain a reputation for toughness in defending self and property.
In a 2006 doctoral dissertation at Louisiana State University called "Reexamining the Subculture of Violence in the South," Timothy C. Hayes writes that "the term 'honor' as used here has more to do with the willingness to use violence when it is expected than the more traditional definition of bravery or moral character." This ethic is derived from the nomadic herder culture of the original Scotch-Irish settlers of the region, and it is easy to see how it transfers seamlessly into the highly militaristic ethos for which the South is known.
Though he would make out otherwise, the current John McCain's use of the word "honor" in relation to his own career is fraught with contradiction. With respect to his military career, he fell far short of the standards of excellence set by his forbears. The headline of a recent Los Angeles Times article, "Mishaps Mark John McCain's Record as Naval Aviator: Three crashes early in his career led Navy officials to question or fault his judgment," by Ralph Vartabedian and Richard A. Serrano, says much of it. "Though standards were looser and crashes more frequent in the 1960s, McCain's record stands out," the article says. McCain one time flew so low over Southern Spain that he crashed into electrical wiring and precipitated a blackout over the region.
McCain's claim to have preserved the tradition of military honor in his family rests on his heroism as a POW. But here too there is ambiguity. McCain was subjected to a cruel regimen of torture -- but so was virtually every POW who spent time in the Hanoi Hilton until about two years before they were are all released. He did refuse the North Vietnamese offer of early release ahead of his fellow prisoners -- but so did numerous other POWs who were tendered that same offer.
On the other side of the ledger, McCain subsequently broke down under torture and made a taped confession that was broadcast over Hanoi radio. Again, many of his fellow POWs did similar things. McCain behaved neither better nor worse than most other American captives there. He displayed fortitude and valor, but not of a sufficient kind or degree to justify the repeated attempts to portray him as an exceptional hero in the circumstances.
If McCain did not display an exceptional standard of honor in his military career, he has manifested an abysmal one in civilian life. His political career began in the midst of ethical scandal and seems to be ending with his choice of an unqualified vice-presidential running mate and a spasm of prevarication and slander. He has, as commentators of various stripes have noted, recently shown a cavalier disdain for the welfare of his country.
The content of John Sidney McCain III's vaunted sense of honor seems to be limited to the primitive, narrow, Scotch-Irish ethic of preemptive violence and retribution, particularly as that applies to American foreign policy. That would be an extremely dangerous ethic for an American president to have as his only source of moral guidance.