Two paragraphs reads: Now, six years after losing the presidential election to Barack Obama, Mr. McCain finally has the only job in Washington, other than being president, that he ever wanted: chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, overseer of the American military and the nation’s defense policy. The question is whether he will use his new clout (and ability to subpoena) to make war or some accommodation with the White House. “McCain now has the power either to destroy the president’s national security policy or shape it constructively,” said Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. “This is the first step to see whether he is going to use his new power to clobber Obama as he has for the past six years, or whether he will use it to try to shape and improve Obama’s policy.” Two paragraphs reads: He said in an interview last Thursday that Mr. Obama’s decision not to send more American troops to Iraq to thwart the Islamic State had put America at risk. “That attack you saw in Paris? You’ll see an attack in the United States,” Mr. McCain said. He repeated his frequent assessment that the president’s foreign policy is “a disaster” and “delusional.” He said “of course” he would have made a better commander in chief. And he is still seething about his last visit to the Oval Office, in September 2013, when he and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, backed Mr. Obama’s plan to intervene militarily in Syria — only to watch the president change his mind. Three paragraphs reads: For his debut as chairman, Mr. McCain is planning a series of hearings on national security strategy with a bipartisan cast of luminaries from administrations long past, among them former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, 91, and two former national security advisers: Brent Scowcroft, 89, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, 86. Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, said the president sees Mr. McCain as possessing “a very important viewpoint to consult with,” even if Mr. Obama rejects Mr. McCain’s interventionist stance. Mr. McDonough said Mr. McCain had influenced the Obama administration’s foreign policy, although when he was asked how, he paused. “The reason I’m pausing,” he finally said, “is I’m trying to give you a concrete example.” Two paragraphs reads: For Mr. McCain, a former Navy pilot and the son and grandson of admirals, running Armed Services is the “fulfillment of a lifelong political aspiration,” said Mark Salter, a longtime adviser to Mr. McCain and co-author of several of the senator’s books. Mr. McCain, in a sense, grew up on the Armed Services Committee. In 1977, four years after his release as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, the Navy assigned Captain McCain to be its Senate liaison. He traveled around the world with committee members like Gary Hart, a Democrat who later ran for president, and William S. Cohen, a Republican who became defense secretary under President Bill Clinton. John G. Tower, the committee chairman and a hawkish Texas Republican, became like a second father to Mr. McCain. First paragraph reads: One by one, Senator John McCain’s fellow prisoners from the Vietnam War have been dying, and at 78, he said, he is aware more than ever that his time will come, too. “Every single day,” he mused in an interview, “is a day less that I am going to be able to serve in the Senate.” Last two paragraphs reads: Mr. McCain is not particularly interested in talking about legacy. But he did say that he has been hit hard by the deaths of fellow war prisoners, men he considered brothers. So he is feeling a new sense of urgency, he said, to “jam-pack” his schedule and make the most of his time. He said he had already decided on an epitaph for his tombstone: “He served his country. nytimes/2015/01/14/us/politics/john-mccain-78-and-untamed-savors-senate-dream-job.html?_r=0
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 10:32:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015