John McCain is indeed a 'Maverick'

The 1986 film "Top Gun" aired on a cable station a few weeks back and, as it sucked us in, we suddenly wondered: Given his early days as a Navy pilot, is John McCain an older, wiser, scarred manifestation of Maverick?

On Wednesday, as McCain proceeded with his "biography" campaign tour, he provided compelling evidence that the comparison to the swaggering lead character Tom Cruise played in the hit flick is an apt one.

Times reporter Maeve Reston was along as McCain made a late-afternoon stop in Pensacola, Fla., where he trained as a pilot. She relates that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee amused an audience of several hundred people at the local junior college with tales of his years as a young aviator. He recalled that he had few priorities “greater than my own amusement,” and frequently blew his paycheck at a bar known as Trader John's.

He also admitted that after earning his wings, he “made the most” of his Navy experience on the Mediterranean cruises and in various ports of call. And then he told a tale that could have served as the inspiration for Maverick's proclivity, in "Top Gun," for buzzing control towers.

McCain recalled knocking down power lines in southern Spain because he was “flying too low for no good reason.” The result, he said, was a temporary power outage ...

to a “great many” homes.

“I wanted to live the life of a daring, brash, fun-loving flier, indifferent to the hazards of his profession,” McCain said.

He added that he thought the persona would prove irresistible, especially to the women whose attention he sought. “The image I aspired to was, in the end, only irresistible to one person -– me, and it was a very childish attraction.”

But a very cinematic one.

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: Paramount

Comments

[dave]

mccain, seemingly technically still handled as the allegedly-purported presumptive, precipitately and provisionally media-crowned republican nominee, never dropped his swaggering immature ways. and he does not really pretend that he did. but while he might be able to laugh at the pranks of his youth, as in his fourth aircraft loss, at which occasion 134 of his own were killed, or at his careless provocation of the related power outage by disregarding the rules, it would not be a laughing matter to see him put out the lights of america.

[lmidge]

John McCain is no maverick. Rather methinks "he doth protest too much." And this so called "biography" tour is so transparent to anyone who appreciates what he is doing: getting out what He wants people to know so that when the time comes and some mature, investigative reporter reveals the "real" McCain, he hopes people will have been immunized by his self-deprecating tour. Of course, people love a bad boy, especially the press, so it's understandable that his audiences on this tour are going to enjoy his "bad boy" tales, but behind the facade is another McCain and do we want him for Presiden? And McCain's POW status is not a valid reason to make him President.

[Christopher]

This is absurd. John McCain is not a movie character. He is a real human being with real flawed policies that will have a negative effect on a "great many" real people. Keep your eye on the ball journalists. Look up the definition of "maverick" and please write about how spending 24 years in the US Senate accomodates that definition.

[shunaki]

I am sorry, one of this guy's best buds, Phil Gramm co-authored the law to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act. Some would argue that Glass-Steagall might have helped identify the issues with Bear before it imploded. His "it's 3am" commerical is really scary due to this fact. Everyone also is aware of his relationship with Charles Keating and the cost to taxpayers of the bailout of the S&Ls. Just wondering how the media chose him to represent the Republican party when this idiot is as liberal as Ted Kennedy. His final mission as the Captain(not admiral like his daddy) DOES seem to be to put the lights out of this once great nation.