9 Responses to “The first in my memory”

1. David Malouf
   November 4th, 2008 @ 9:54 pm

   McCain is the son of 2 previous generations of naval admirals? What do you mean? His acceptance to Annapolis and his making it into the naval pilots were both HUGELY due to privilege. Then there is his marrying into money.

   But the other 3 you are correct about.

   – dave

2. Michael Buckbee
   November 4th, 2008 @ 10:23 pm

   David is absolutely correct with respect to John McCain’s past (Navy Admirals and Beer Distributor money), but I would not be so quick as to say that John McCain was not a “self made” man, he had options in life and chose a path that was most definitely not the one of least resistance.

3. Todd Wilkens
   November 5th, 2008 @ 4:14 am

   Hard choices don’t erase the fact of privilege. A dynasty of Navy Admirals is a huge privilege for a career in the military/politics and comes with a lot of assumptions about where you will go and what you will achieve. It’s clear that his privilege doesn’t define him — privilege played no part in his survival as a POW. He has character. But he had a huge leg up from the beginning. And marrying rich didn’t hurt.

4. Samantha Bailey
   November 5th, 2008 @ 5:54 am

   It’s not really accurate to say that privilege played to part in his survival as a POW; he received medical attention that probably saved his life after the North Koreans learned they had what they referred to as a “prince” in captivity.
   http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

5. peterme
   November 5th, 2008 @ 7:03 am

   I was not aware of the degree of privilege bestowed Navy admirals. I knew of them in his lineage, but I also know the military tends to very much be a meritocracy. And even so, that kind of privilege is very different from the silver spoon in both Bush’s mouths, or the family dynasty of Gore or Kennedy.

6. harold
   November 5th, 2008 @ 7:48 am

   I think, unfortunately, that your perceptions about entitlement in military “dynasties” are a little bit ahead of the realities. Hopefully, McCain is one of the last candidate from the military about whom we’ll have this debate. He was classy in his concession. It was like some kind of spell was broken…

7. BJMe
   November 5th, 2008 @ 8:45 am

   Privilege shmivilege, a non issue no matter how you define it. As always it was the jackasses versus the pachyderms. Us against them. Without a third and other viable political parties with coalition potential, American elections are a zero-sum game with democracy the loser.

8. Mark Bernstein
   November 6th, 2008 @ 8:59 am

   From the Arlington National Cemetery Website:

   “John Sidney McCain, Sr. (August 9, 1884–September 6, 1945) was an Admiral in the United States Navy, notable as a commander of the Fast Carrier Task Force in World War II. His son John S. McCain, Jr. was also an admiral (the only father-son pair of full admirals in US history), and his grandson John McCain III, also a naval officer, (retired Navy Captain), is a U.S. Senator from Arizona. All three attended the United States Naval Academy, which his great-grandson, John S. (Jack) McCain IV, is currently attending.”

9. John
   November 13th, 2008 @ 4:26 pm

   It’s fairly accepted that McCain’s career in the military might have ended with his FIRST crash landing, if not his second… long before he was shot down over Vietnam and became a hero. It was privilege that kept him flying, and – ironically – privilege that sent him to the toughest prison on earth. But it was immense privilege, nonetheless.

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