{"id":349,"date":"2008-04-16T10:00:15","date_gmt":"2008-04-16T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/?p=349"},"modified":"2008-04-16T10:36:12","modified_gmt":"2008-04-16T14:36:12","slug":"does-john-mccain-suffer-from-post-traumatic-stress-disorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/?p=349","title":{"rendered":"Does John McCain Suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mad
\nI’m gonna get you, sucka: John McCain flashes those pearly whites <\/em><\/p>\n

It’s such an obvious question that it seems bizarre few in the media have asked it:<\/p>\n

Does John McCain<\/a>, the Republican nominee for president, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?<\/p>\n

And, outrageously, did he refer to his wife with the evil “C-word,” during an outburst?<\/p>\n

I raised the former issue during a recent appearance<\/a> on NPR journalist Farai Chideya’s News and Notes<\/em>‘s “Blogger’s Roundtable.” But I started thinking about this subject while listening to the March 26 edition of Democracy Now<\/em>.<\/a> In an interview with host Amy Goodman, investigative reporter Robert Dreyfuss (The Nation<\/em>) has this exchange about his latest piece:<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Dreyfuss, you got your title, \u201cHothead McCain,\u201d<\/a> from a Republican senator. You\u2019re quoting Republican Senator Thad Cochran, who said, \u201cThe thought of his being President sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me.\u201d<\/p>\n

ROBERT DREYFUSS: Yes, I use that quote, and it says immediately after that that shortly after saying that, Thad Cochran endorsed McCain. So it\u2019s clear that the Republicans are gathering around their leader, despite the fact that many senators, not just Cochran, but many Republican senators view McCain with alarm and not because he\u2019s some sort of closet liberal\u2014it\u2019s true that on some domestic issues he lined up with some Senate liberals\u2014but on foreign policy, they\u2019re are scared of him. And on a personal level, McCain has had a tendency over the years\u2014this is so well known on Capitol Hill\u2014to erupt, to explode, to scream and yell at his colleagues in the Republican caucus, in closed-door meetings behind the scenes, and sometimes even in public. So he has scared a lot of his colleagues, who I\u2019m sure are supporting him, like Cochran did, out of party loyalty, but who\u2019ve said, as Cochran did, that they\u2019re extremely concerned about his temper and his apparent willingness to explode.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve met McCain up close. I rode around the bus with him nine years ago when he was campaigning in New Hampshire. I found him scary up close. I think when you see him two feet away, he looks like somebody whose head could explode. He\u2019s got a very barely controlled anger underneath his sort of calm demeanor that he seems to almost grit his teeth to keep inside. And I found him very scary personally. And I\u2019m always shocked, I\u2019m always stunned, when media who cover McCain don\u2019t bring that across. He\u2019s not a jolly fellow. He\u2019s not somebody who you want to sit down and have beers with, where I could see people think that about President Bush\u2014he\u2019s kind of an amiable dunce, as someone said about an earlier president. McCain is not somebody I want to have a beer with. I think he\u2019s a really scary guy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), “irritability or outbursts of anger” is one of primary signs of PTSD.<\/p>\n

The condition can occur when<\/p>\n

The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present:<\/p>\n

(1) the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others<\/p>\n

(2) the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: In children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"McCain,John McCain, a Navy aviator during the Vietnam War, was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967, injured in the accident, captured by North Vietnamese soldiers, and held as a prisoner of war for five-and-a-half years, during which time he was repeatedly tortured.<\/p>\n

McCain was released in 1973 and retired from the Navy in 1981. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Arizona, in 1982. After two terms, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, and has served as a member since then.<\/p>\n

Clearly, McCain is a talented and adaptable person, known for many outstanding qualities, an admirable independent streak being one of them. Dreyfuss notes this.<\/p>\n

But just as clearly, McCain’s experiences seemed to mark him as highly eligible for the disorder. Certainly, many war veterans who never experienced torture\u2014not to mention half-a-decade-plus of brutal captivity\u2014suffer from the after-effects of their service.<\/p>\n

But McCain’s temper is on another level. For example:<\/p>\n

\u2022 “In a front page article and separate editorial Sunday, The Arizona Republic<\/em> said it wanted the nation to know about the ‘volcanic’ temper McCain has unleashed on several top state officials.”\u2014“McCain’s Temper May Become an Issue,”<\/a> Associated Press<\/em>, October 31, 1999<\/p>\n

\u2022 From “McCain, Cornyn Engage in Heated Exchange,”<\/a> The Washington Post<\/em>, May 18, 2007, during a debate on immigration, the following exchange took place:<\/p>\n

[Expletive<\/em>] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room,” shouted McCain at Cornyn. McCain helped craft a bill in 2006 that passed the Senate but couldn’t be compromised with a House bill that was much tougher on illegal immigrants.<\/p>\n

Cornyn’s office declined to comment on the incident. McCain’s camp specifically denied that the senator ever claimed to know more about the immigration issue than other senators, but acknowledged that the two Republicans had quite a disagreement.<\/p>\n

“These negotiations can be very tense, and there was a spirited exchange. That’s it,” said Brian Jones, spokesman for McCain’s presidential campaign.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2022 In 1992, at a meeting of the Senate Special Committee on POW\/MIA Affair, McCain got into a yelling match with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. According to Salon.com<\/a>, the other senators related this tempestuous encounter between the two men:<\/p>\n

The pair got so close to one another that the senator who tells me the story — aware that because of war injuries, McCain’s arms don’t fully extend — was convinced McCain “was going to drive the top of his head into Grassley’s nose. I was convinced that bone fragments were going to go into Chuck’s brain, and I was sitting there and was about to witness a murder.”<\/p>\n

McCain suddenly stood up. But instead of a head-butting homicide, he delivered a crushing blow of words.<\/p>\n

“You know, senator,” McCain said, seething, “I thought your problem was that you don’t listen. But that’s not it at all. Your problem is that you’re a f-cking jerk.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2022 McCain clearly still bears anger against his North Vietnamese tormentors. In 2000, McCain spoke of them<\/a>, saying, \u201cI hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live\u2026 I was referring to my prison guards and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend.\u201d He later apologized for his use of the epithet.<\/p>\n

Account after account in the blogosphere and mainstream say the same thing: “Bob Dole Admits John McCain Has A Temper”<\/a>; “John McCain’s Temper His Undoing!”<\/a>; “Harkin: McCain’s temper is ‘scary'”<\/a>; “Will McCain’s Temper Be a Liability?”<\/a>; “Should John McCain’s temper be a campaign issue?”<\/a>; “John McCain\u2019s $#@%$#@ Temper.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps most noxious of all, however, is an alleged exchange between McCain and his own wife, Cindy, in 1992. According to the The Raw Story<\/em> web site<\/a>, in an upcoming book, The Real McCain<\/em><\/a>, author Cliff Schecter writes the following:<\/p>\n

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c-nt.” McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet, still, no one is asking any substantial questions about McCain’s mental health, or his fitness for office.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason, of course, is that mainstream media fear losing the one thing without which they can’t exist, and that politicians implicitly dangle over their heads: access. Act up, or don’t play along, and you might find yourself unable to get time with insiders, or find exclusives being tossed to your competitors.<\/p>\n

However, because I don’t want access, I’m asking: Does John McCain suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder?<\/p>\n

Well? Does he?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m gonna get you, sucka: John McCain flashes those pearly whites It’s such an obvious question that it seems bizarre few in the media have asked it: Does John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? And, outrageously, did he refer to his wife with the evil “C-word,” during an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46,7,15,61,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}