Hard Call: The Art of Great Decisions by John McCain, Mark Salter
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Book Reviews of Hard Call: The Art of Great Decisions
Book Review: A Preview of a Possible Presidency
Summary: 4 Stars
McCain's book, moreso than that of other politicians, does give you a feel for how he would be as a president. His view of what is a hard call is very relevant.
I do have a quibble in that early on he criticizes the faulty intelligence leading to the Iraq war, then closes the Niebuhr/Bonhoffer chapter under "Humility" with the suggestion they would possibly back the
Iraq war today.
But it does have a variety of history of an era that I lived through but did not pick up on during my childhood, and does give a view of the man.
Book Review: "Oddball" McCain reveals some very personal quirks!
Summary: 4 Stars
John McCain is quite an interesting man, and this first person account was fascinating. I was surprised to read that McCain puts aside 35 minutes each day to tap dance, and follows a diet consisting entirely of tangerines. And who would have thought McCain wears the very same pair of "lucky" underpants every day, except for his "Sunday pants." I was hoping that McCain would have gone into more depth about his year-long relationship with Edith Piaf in the late 1930s, but I guess there's always the next one! Great book!Book Review: The Man Who Would Be King....eerr...President!
Summary: 3 Stars
Who else but the ageing Michael Caine should play John McCain in the movie he's continuously making of his life? And the aspiring Commander in Chief shows every sign of a strong desire to take us all to Afghanistan and beyond, namely to Iran.
Let me say quickly that I enjoyed the narrative chapters of this book. Mark Salter writes good, straightforward action prose. Who wouldn't enjoy reading about the high points in the lives of people like Neil Armstrong, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Robert Gould Shaw? But the sermons at the head of each section, on Awareness, Foresight, Timing, Confidence, etc. - whether McCain wrote any of them or merely sketched the notions for Salter to full in - reminded me way too much of Polonius's advice to his son in Hamlet, that is "full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse." I was also mildly disgusted by McCain's gratuitous attempts to link himself to the heroism of his various subjects. For example, you can be sure that when Neil sets foot on the moon, John will remind us that he was a prisoner of war at the time. The result is that despite all, this comes across as a campaign biography, and a sequel at that, to JFK's Profiles in Courage.
Does it tell us something we need to know about Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate for President? I think it does. He's a man of little modesty, a man who respects inflexibility much more than the ability to adjust and evolve. Shakespeare wrote in Twelfth Night: "Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." McCain writes about his heroes as if they were all born with the virtues he values. Obviously most of us are hoping for a President of the second sort, someone who can achieve greatness. But John McCain seems by his own writing to be the third sort, a fairly ordinary earnest guy who has had prominence thrust upon him.
Book Review: Written by a Charlatan
Summary: 1 Stars
McCain has never tried to work through a tough decision. His own autobiography describes (although the description is watered down) his duplicity that got American service men killed. If you want to buy a book about hard decisions then buy it from someone who has made one.
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