Rolling Stone on John McCain

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, an investigative report, Tim Dickinson, "Make Believe Maverick," Rolling Stone, 16 October 2008. It is worse than we had supposed, though consistent with the general contempt in which Senator McCain appears to be held by his Senate colleagues.

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

(Illustration by Robert Grossman)