HotmailIs it in his hug? The Bush-McCain relationship
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The Hug that will live in infamy
But The Hug — the legendary embrace that appears at the beginning of this chapter — came a few months later in Pensacola, Florida, on August 10, 2004. The location could not have been more fraught with significance for McCain. Pensacola is the home of the oldest naval air station in America, the cradle of naval aviation. It was there that a newly minted Ensign John McCain reported for his first assignment after graduating from the Naval Academy. It must have been a bitter moment for McCain to return there forty-six years later to introduce a man who'd refused to report for duty in the Alabama Air National Guard while John McCain was being held as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton.
But McCain rose to the occasion — or, rather, sank to it. "He was determined and remains determined to make this world a better, safer, freer place," McCain said. "And he has more than earned our support — he has earned our admiration and our love." And then McCain did it. There was no sneaking up, no surprise gotcha-grab from behind. McCain strode over to Bush. Both men had removed their coats and ties and had rolled up their sleeves in deference to the August heat in the "Redneck Riviera." As he approached Bush, McCain shifted his body ever so slightly to his right, extended his arms — first the right, then the left — and pulled Bush in for a massive bear hug. Bush at first seemed to want to continue waving to the crowd, but McCain's embrace was so all-encompassing that Bush could only give in.
As they embraced, Bush patted McCain's back, and then McCain gently nestled his head on Bush's chest. It was as submissive a posture as one could imagine: the defeated beta wolf offering his jugular to the alpha male. To complete the tableau, Bush gave McCain a peck on the temple.
That's right — the younger, feckless playboy dismissed the older, fearless flyboy with the kind of peck on the head you use for shooing away a cloying, annoying little nephew.
Weaver was ready to spin The Hug into political gold. "I wouldn't characterize either man as a hug victim," he told the New York Times. "I think they were mutual hugs, and mutual looking forward." Rick Davis, McCain's longtime right-hand man, eagerly reinforced the argument that Bush and McCain were essentially identical ideologically, telling the Times, "I think what they [the Bush campaign] have found is McCain doesn't upset their conservative base because he's a conservative. He's both a religious conservative, he's pro-life — you couldn't run a thread between his position on abortion and Bush's — and yet at the same time he speaks to a much broader audience politically. So why not hang around with that guy?"
Why not indeed? The truth is, The Hug was probably not as painful for McCain — nor as emotional, nor as difficult — as I would have thought. The truth is, John McCain was merely reverting to form, as Davis said. McCain was, is, and ever shall be a Bush Republican. His occasional forays into Bush-bashing were simply expressions of ambition, an attempt to beat another right-wing corporate tool to the top of the greasy poll. But there is no ideological difference between them, and the combination of their shared policy agenda and their equally fanatical ambition made it easy for McCain to embrace George W. Bush — embrace him personally and politically; embrace his values and his principles; his agenda and his priorities; his war and his economic policy; nearly all things Bush both foreign and domestic. Perhaps that's why loyal Bush spokesperson Nicole Devenish vouched for the authenticity of The Hug, saying, "I don't think either man is capable of pretense." Devenish is now known by her married name, Nicole Wallace — and by her new professional role, coordinating strategy and communications for the John McCain campaign.
The Hug was real; it was the "Straight Talk" that was phony
Excerpted from “Third Term: Why George W. Bush Loves John McCain.” Copyright (c) 2008 by Paul Begala. Reprinted with permission from Simon & Schuster.
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