John McCain has an obsession with honor. At least that is what TIME magazine is saying and I agree with them. In fact the word honor is mentioned more than 24 times throughout the article. The article published in the September 8 edition, titled “Hon.or- It’s John McCain’s greatest strength and his greatest weakness”, has made me question the motives of McCain and his slogan ‘Country First’.

This article gave a great overview of McCain’s personal and political history that really put things into perspective for me, beyond this year’s campaign. The article states that to McCain, honor means “telling the truth, doing the right thing rather than the easy thing and putting America’s needs ahead of your needs”. This definition is debatable. Looking at the past, McCain wasn’t always faithful to his Republican party and often rebelled against his colleagues, with one senator describing him as “nasty, vindictive and mean-spirited”. The article was by no means bias, it showed a balanced view, so I found this interesting. Why can’t he co-operate with others in Senate? Last time I check McCain isn’t a 6-year-old, he should know how to ‘share’ by now.

The writer explores McCain’s early adulthood growing up with family service background, telling how he was resistant to join the navy, ranking 894th out of 899 in his Naval Academy. He is described as a rebel, a joker, rude and defiant to the law. This is of course throughout McCain’s early life and has no impact on my opinion of him as a presidential candidate however, it does explain his rogue political career. This includes a number of scandals that challenged his ‘honor’ including the Keating Five scandal. Failing to be elected as president in 2000, McCain has tried a more conservative and rigid approach to his campaign this time around and it seems to be working, with the polls closer than ever.

In response to Cadley’s blog early last week stating that McCain is consistent, I disagree. If you look at McCain’s foreign policies there is many differences between McCain in 2000 and McCain today. The article highlights the fact that once upon a time McCain was opposed to U.S troops fighting abroad, against military interventions in Haiti, Somalia and Balkans. However, as McCain began to campaign for president in 2000, he changed his tune saying America's honor required much stronger responses to tyrants. How hypocritical is that! If you look at McCain’s attitude towards military in his current campaign, he is very pro war, saying in his presidential nomination speech “I fought for the right strategy and more troops in Iraq, when it wasn’t a popular thing to do…I said I’d rather lose an election than see my country lose a war.” McCain has failed to acknowledge the negative consequences of sending troops to war. So in light of all this, is McCain really putting the country first? Or will McCain’s obsession with honor be the end of him and us?