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bookofmirrorsEgad... Yes, I'm making one of THOSE posts. A bit different than most, though. This isn't about the policies or the issues, except to the degree that they came up in the books. This is part book review(s), part psych profile, part me talking out my ass. You get to decide to what degree each is present. :) I suppose this can be a debate, if someone wants to debate it, but I'm not really putting up debate points. I'm just offering my educated opinion, and throwing it out there with all the other drivel that's out there supposedly helping you to be an informed voter.
First, the bibliography of this post:
John McCain/Mark Salter - Faith of My Fathers
John McCain/Mark Salter - Worth the Fighting For
Barack Obama - Dreams from My Father
Barack Obama - The Audacity of Hope
Kaylene Johnson - Sarah
Joe Biden - Promises to Keep
Core Energetics
I added the Core Energetics site as part of the bibliography, because it affects my thinking in a profound way. If you want any insight on the vocabulary I use ("psychopathy" in Core doesn't mean what it means to the rest of the world, for instance), you can check some of my entries in the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
core_energetics group.
Also... with the exception of Sarah Palin, who hasn't written any books that I could find, I specifically chose autobiographies. This, of course, gives the author (or authors, in McCain's case) the opportunity to paint themselves in the most glowing of lights. I allow for that. But getting things in their own words (with the caveats noted) gives me more of an insight into their personality. What they put in, how they discuss how it affects them... these were the sorts of things I was looking for. So, you're getting my bias on their biases. Caveat Emptor and all that.
OK, in no particular order...
John McCain
McCain had a co-writer. He makes no bones in this book about his lack of scholarly pursuits, so he probably NEEDED a co-writer. To what degree that has colored his books, I can't tell. I'm going on the presumption that Salter was a hired Grammar Whore, and that the words/stories are authentically McCain's.
If I had only read his first book, I would have been scared shitless of this guy. His lack of self-perception is astounding. He didn't show much indication at all of having any insight on why he does the things he does. Easy chances at insight were pushed aside. The most obvious example of this that I recall was that he said he didn't have any therapy after being a POW. (Granted, I'm heavily biased towards therapy in general, for whatever reason, but c'mon...) He said the reason he didn't was because he didn't have the symptoms of PTSD. He then goes on to state that he did have some repercussions from his experience, and goes on to list a few of the symptoms of PTSD. That one was a no-brainer. His father and grandfather were distant and authoritarian, and his mother apparently wasn't much better. He recounts a story where he and a sibling were goofing off in the back seat of a car, and his mother threw a metal thermos at his head hard enough to leave a dent in it once it hit its mark, to get him to knock it off already. He finds this funny, as apparently did his mother, who laughed about it at the time. Sorry, that constitutes abuse in my book. There were other hints of this sort of thing, although nothing else as glaring. This is worrisome to me, because this is just the kind of childhood environment that creates what Core calls psychopathy. To spare you going to the group, I'll give a quick version of psychopathy: The Good - great leaders ; The Bad - generally liars who absolutely believe their own version of the truth and have a GREAT deal of fear about being proven wrong, which generally leads to a lot of fear-based, usually manipulative, behaviors to maintain the "truth" as they see it. There's a lot more than that, but this is the relevant stuff. Keep in mind that, in all I've read, McCain denies having ever had any kind of therapy, and generally the Good side of psychopathy comes out after one heals the Bad side - usually in therapy. Guess which side I'd be worried about surfacing?
He's very cut off from his emotions. All during his childhood, he said (sometimes in almost so many words, and it's not hard to read between the lines) he resented the path laid out before him - that is, following in the footsteps of 2 Navy Admirals, the only (at least at that time, don't know about since then) father/son team to ever both achieve that rank. His academic record was so bad (I can't remember if there were finances involved, but I do know he got into whatever Naval college he went to, I don't remember the name, by the skin of his teeth, after a talk with his father about his performance) that he could pretty much only get into military colleges, which further set in stone his eventual enlistment in the military. It was this enlistment that got him into the Vietnam War and the POW camp in the first place. He talks a lot on TV about how he didn't take advantage of their offer to release him early, because of the first-in-first-out Code of the Navy (military?). He mentions that in the book. He also mentions, which I don't hear a lot on TV how it would have dishonored his father if he had done so, and that they only made that offer because he was an Admiral's grand/son. He talks about how his father (I believe, unbeknownst to him at the time) had orders to bomb the area where he was imprisoned, and did so, knowing his son was there, and that he might inadvertently kill him. He talks poignantly about stories he heard later about how his father would often stop and just stare in the direction of Hanoi, wherever he was, because it was the closest he could get to his son. But the thing that struck me most about all this... McCain resented his entrance into the military service, did so to please his grand/father, and ended up in a prison camp as a result. And he claims he never once resented his father for this. I'm sorry, I call total bullshit on this. I've seen too much and been trained too well to believe this for a second. I guarantee you there is part of him that is SCREAMINGLY FURIOUS about this. If he'd had therapy, I'd say maybe he's worked it out and gotten over it. The fact that he hasn't leads me to surmise that he's either lying, or extremely self-deceptive. My guess is the latter. I will point out that he retired from the Navy the DAY his father died - directly from the funeral to the office. Again, he claims no connection. Again, I call bullshit.
His second book, other than containing the aforementioned retirement, leaves me much more room for hope. He spends some time defending himself against certain allegations in his life - the Keating 5 incident you hear so much about, for instance. I do gather from that that he was fully exonerated, as was one other in the scandal, whereas the 3 others were found "guilty" of some wrongdoing. He's apparently friends with his ex-wife, as he mentions she stood up for him during this time. There was very little about his marriage, divorce, and re-marriage that stood out in the book, so I have nothing really to say about the scandals that people are harping about. No idea what his motivations were. His reasons in the book were generic enough that they didn't spark any interest. It's certainly not uncommon for people to come back from wars, POW or not, and get divorces. My (uneducated, in this case) guess is that that's what happened here, for the most part.
He does seem to be really into this whole pork-barrel spending thing he keeps talking about. This is a really big thing for him, and took up a decent amount of time (I say time, because I "read" the second book as an audiobook, so I don't have a "pages" perspective) in the book. He's also very much into bi-partisan cooperation. These things, as far as I can tell, are true.
While I disagree on (my own personal pacifism) principle on the conclusions he's come to regarding military action, I have come to the conclusion that he really does go out of his way to consider the options, and get feedback from sources he trusts before making a decision. He disagreed with Reagan early in his political career, and it was clearly hard for him to do; it sounded in the book like he idolized Reagan to some degree. In the second book, he also shows no love for Bush-the-current. Mostly, this was a personal issue - something about a presidential campaign where Bush snubbed him somehow. My conclusion from reading that was that he had no love lost for Bush, but that doesn't jive with what I've seen. Maybe they've made up? I just don't know on that one. Even so, having a personal conflict with someone doesn't necessarily affect how one feels about their politics.
He certainly acknowledges his apparently legendary temper, and cites some instances in which he wishes he'd kept his cool, and other times where it's served him well.
In general, I think he means well, and has some very strong ideas about integrity of government that I support, but his underlying psychology still scares me. He always talks about how his imprisonment was a turning point in his life, and I think that's true. He's certainly come a long way from the snot-nosed punk he was growing up. But I don't think it's been far enough.
Barack Obama
From a psychological standpoint, I like Obama a lot better. He's way less psychopathic (a la Core) than he is oral/rigid (also a la Core). This makes him, on the Good side, also good leader material, and a go-getter, and intelligent; and on the Bad side, needy and some degree of OCD (the OCD thing wasn't at all present in his books, and I don't necessarily mean it's anything other than making sure his shirts are properly ironed... it's just a supposition based on my knowledge of the rigid character structure). He doesn't mention therapy, either, but it's clear that he's a Seeker, and that he's gone out of his way to try and heal himself. It took time, and a lot of resistance on his part, but he did it. Yeah, he inhaled, and he also did some other drug, which he used the street name for, so not sure off the top of my head which it was... it was either that he tried cocaine and wouldn't touch heroin, or tried heroin and wouldn't touch cocaine. My guess is the former, since heroin is more notoriously addictive than cocaine, but I won't swear to it. Anyway, in his first book, which I truly believe he wrote before having any political aspirations, he is very frank about his early mistakes. He really does, to a good degree, exemplify the American Dream. Prior to college, though, I'm not sure how much one can say that he really experienced America like the majority of the country does. Hawaii is practically, as I understand it, another country, and he did live in Indonesia for a while. This, by the way, is where he went to both a Muslim school and a Catholic school, as I recall... both for 2 years each, I think. This was either because they were the best schools available at the time, or the only ones, or some combination of both. Not sure which. My personal thoughts on this are that it would be nice to have someone in a high office that has a basic understanding of Islam, especially the Islam as it was before the fundamentalists got a hold of it.
He's got all the stereotypical issues that you'd expect the son of a single mother who went through a couple of husbands along the way would have. Add to that a few of the stereotypical Angry Black Man elements, including some sort of connection with the Black Panthers back in the day. And all the made-for-TV-drama of that same person with those issues suddenly getting their shit together and deciding to go to college and make something of themselves. Then deciding to go to Kenya to find his roots, and his connection to the father he barely knew. Then coming back and deciding to go to Harvard. I don't have much to add to that. Pop culture psychology works just fine there.
I wish I had read his second book in that order. Instead, I read it first, and I think it affected my understanding of it a bit. I didn't have the psychological background on him that might have helped me put what he said in perspective, whereas I read McCain's books in their chronological order. What I do remember of it, though, is that he's very thoughtful. He elicits input, and thinks things over. This is a good thing. This can also be a bad thing, because it can make him less decisive when he needs to be decisive. Something Joe Biden mentions in his book about Jimmy Carter as a president was that he listened carefully, and then did what he wanted to do anyway, and that wasn't always what was recommended by the wisest of his counselors. Which, as always, puts the final decision in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief... so, in the end, we're left with that final buck-stops-here decision. It's unclear to me how wise Obama is personally. He seems wise, but I can't decide how much of that is beautiful rhetoric, and how much of that is true wisdom. There aren't too many stances in his book. He's actually in favor of most of the same good things McCain is in favor of - decreasing corruption in government, bi-partisanism, blahblahblah. Aside for the obvious Democrat/Republican schisms (abortion, social programs, economic programs), he's not that much different on the issues. (Of course, the ones he's different on are the HUGE things that divide the parties...)
But he knows his own mind better. He's willing to gaze at his navel and come out the other side. That makes him more trustworthy in my book. McCain is savvy. Obama is both savvy and intelligent.
Joe Biden
From a Core perspective, straight-up rigid character structure. Again, good leader with some ..er... rigid tendencies. He knew what he wanted from just about his earliest days, and studied exactly how to get there, and didn't let anything stop him from getting there. He found out just what it took to become a politician, and did that. That's why he became a lawyer - because lawyers became politicians. He busted his ass to get into a private high school. He found the girl of his dreams, and pursued her. She died, along with his infant daughter, and he (not without some deep pain) went on. His sister and her kids moved in to help out, which bears out all the things he said earlier in his book about sticking up for one's family. (Even, I might point out, if you knew they were wrong - defend them in public, debate them in private... not something I personally agree with, although I have the Libra in Mercury retrograde thing so that I could do both, and you wouldn't know the difference unless you were really listening/paying attention.) He almost reluctantly began dating again, and when she put him off year after year when he proposed to her, he finally gave her an ultimatum, and she tied the knot. He's a thrifty guy, salt-of-the-earth type. He explained the accusations of plagiarism to my satisfaction in his book, to the degree I don't think he's guilty of them. He's absolutely CRUSHED when his character is questioned. He's gone OFF on people who offer him money for even a hint at a push towards a specific political outcome, and stormed out of the office without taking the money. (His brother, who did his campaigning for him in most, if not all, of his elections, convinced the guy to give him the check anyway, and Biden ended up taking it, but it didn't seem to affect his voting record, as far as I can tell, then or later. He busted his ass to be a good father AND a senator at the same time, and damn near gave up his Senate seat to be with his kids after the death of their mother, and was only reluctantly convinced to continue. He's driven to a fault, which is why he almost died of the aneurysm. And why he recovered and kept going. Honestly, I can't find a whole lot wrong with Joe Biden. He offered some fantastic perspective on the whole War on Terror thing, and some great insights on foreign policy. Granted, I don't look into that sort of thing much, but lots of down-home savvy wisdom, from my perspective. Some of these things are now coming out in Obama's talks on foreign policy, whereas I didn't notice them before he brought Biden on. He also seems to be pretty on board with all the things Obama and McCain have in common.
Another quick note on him. I also read Hillary's book, Living History, back when she was in the race. I'm not going to critique the book, or her, here, but I will say that, comparing her book to Biden's, Biden is a much better fit to run with Obama, in my opinion. They fit well together, and I think there would have been a lot of friction between Clinton and Obama.
Sarah Palin
She's the hardest one to critique. Her book was written by someone else (someone in her church, I believe), and therefore doesn't have the same kind of insight I can glean from autobiographical works. In fact, the whole book reads like biographical books I read in elementary school. I was struck how much I was reminded of Helen Keller's Teacher, a children's book I read in elementary school. The book wasn't exactly glowing, but it didn't offer much to give me insight on her dark side, either. The book portrayed her as a model Alaskan citizen, God-fearing, moose-hunting, basketball-playing, hard-working, honest-as-the-day-is-long, and driven. Most of this seems to be the picture we're getting in the media, so can't argue with much there, other than that whole honest politician thing. Who can say? I find it interesting that she's coming off as such a ditz in her interviews. If the book is to be believed, she was devouring every newspaper she could get her hands on from an early age, and was totally interested in news and politics when other girls her age were interested in ...girly things. She majored in journalism and minored in political science, so there's nothing that leads me to believe that she should be ill-prepared, either to discuss issues, defend her point, or know how to handle the press. After all, that's what she was basically trained to do, and she WAS one of the press for a while. Granted, Alaska local news ain't national press, but still. So, I don't get it. Something doesn't match up, or else she's just really bad at this. Ditto the whole beauty pageant thing. It surprised everyone when she did it, 'cause she totally wasn't the type, but she did it to get the scholarship to college ...er, colleges. The whole college thing doesn't bug me much. Lots of people switch colleges, and yeah, it seemed mostly like she did it 'cause she missed her family and maybe was a bit on the needy want-my-mommy side, but that's mostly me reading between the lines, and not anything that was said in so many words. Anyway, that happens to a lot of people. She busted her ass to get into the offices she held - like Biden, did a lot of hoofing it door-to-door herself, sometimes with the kids in tow.
I did find it interesting that she ditched a sporting event with her family to elope at the local courthouse, and when witnesses were required, neither of them contacted family at that point, either, but went across the street to get a couple of people from the nursing home, even wheeling (at least) one of them over to be their witnesses. Now, the book doesn't say this, but in a TV show that did a biography on her (as well as Biden, but it pretty much followed what I said above, and already knew from his book), they blithely, and without comment or irony, went on to say that their first child was born 8 months later. Makes you wonder.............. And, of course, this wouldn't be an issue at ALL if it weren't for the potential hypocrisy of the abstinence-only things that she apparently believed in early on, and spouted, at the time. Certainly, she and Todd had been dating since high school. If nothing else, assuming the math is simply the math and that Track wasn't just premature, maybe that helps her have compassion for Bristol.
The book didn't go into any of the controversial stuff that's surrounded her. No mention of the deputy/brother-in-law thing (which might not have happened at time of publication) or the book-banning thing. No mention per se of the church stuff, other than she was a devout Saved Christian. It did mention that she pretty much fired all the staff of the office where she was Mayor, basically to let them know in no uncertain terms that she would tolerate no loyalty to the old regime. She hired the ones who basically agreed to be loyal to her the following week. The book talks a lot about her "not playing the game" of reporters and such. This kindasorta might help to explain what goes on with her and interviews now, but it doesn't quite match what's written, so again, hard to tell. It does cite her simply refusing to answer certain things, etc., which does match. Also, her official explanation about "TrooperGate" is consistent with her tactics at the Mayoral office.
Again, not much to say on her, because I don't have as much to go on. From a Core perspective, she's certainly got rigidity, and very likely psychopathy. My own personal sense, from nothing I can really put my finger on, is that there's some schizoid there somewhere, too.
Anyway, there's my 2 cents. I might make another post someday about my thoughts on certain issues, but I really wanted to get this perspective out there. Whether "character counts" for you or not, you might find it interesting. *shrug*
First, the bibliography of this post:
John McCain/Mark Salter - Faith of My Fathers
John McCain/Mark Salter - Worth the Fighting For
Barack Obama - Dreams from My Father
Barack Obama - The Audacity of Hope
Kaylene Johnson - Sarah
Joe Biden - Promises to Keep
Core Energetics
I added the Core Energetics site as part of the bibliography, because it affects my thinking in a profound way. If you want any insight on the vocabulary I use ("psychopathy" in Core doesn't mean what it means to the rest of the world, for instance), you can check some of my entries in the
core_energetics group.Also... with the exception of Sarah Palin, who hasn't written any books that I could find, I specifically chose autobiographies. This, of course, gives the author (or authors, in McCain's case) the opportunity to paint themselves in the most glowing of lights. I allow for that. But getting things in their own words (with the caveats noted) gives me more of an insight into their personality. What they put in, how they discuss how it affects them... these were the sorts of things I was looking for. So, you're getting my bias on their biases. Caveat Emptor and all that.
OK, in no particular order...
John McCain
McCain had a co-writer. He makes no bones in this book about his lack of scholarly pursuits, so he probably NEEDED a co-writer. To what degree that has colored his books, I can't tell. I'm going on the presumption that Salter was a hired Grammar Whore, and that the words/stories are authentically McCain's.
If I had only read his first book, I would have been scared shitless of this guy. His lack of self-perception is astounding. He didn't show much indication at all of having any insight on why he does the things he does. Easy chances at insight were pushed aside. The most obvious example of this that I recall was that he said he didn't have any therapy after being a POW. (Granted, I'm heavily biased towards therapy in general, for whatever reason, but c'mon...) He said the reason he didn't was because he didn't have the symptoms of PTSD. He then goes on to state that he did have some repercussions from his experience, and goes on to list a few of the symptoms of PTSD. That one was a no-brainer. His father and grandfather were distant and authoritarian, and his mother apparently wasn't much better. He recounts a story where he and a sibling were goofing off in the back seat of a car, and his mother threw a metal thermos at his head hard enough to leave a dent in it once it hit its mark, to get him to knock it off already. He finds this funny, as apparently did his mother, who laughed about it at the time. Sorry, that constitutes abuse in my book. There were other hints of this sort of thing, although nothing else as glaring. This is worrisome to me, because this is just the kind of childhood environment that creates what Core calls psychopathy. To spare you going to the group, I'll give a quick version of psychopathy: The Good - great leaders ; The Bad - generally liars who absolutely believe their own version of the truth and have a GREAT deal of fear about being proven wrong, which generally leads to a lot of fear-based, usually manipulative, behaviors to maintain the "truth" as they see it. There's a lot more than that, but this is the relevant stuff. Keep in mind that, in all I've read, McCain denies having ever had any kind of therapy, and generally the Good side of psychopathy comes out after one heals the Bad side - usually in therapy. Guess which side I'd be worried about surfacing?
He's very cut off from his emotions. All during his childhood, he said (sometimes in almost so many words, and it's not hard to read between the lines) he resented the path laid out before him - that is, following in the footsteps of 2 Navy Admirals, the only (at least at that time, don't know about since then) father/son team to ever both achieve that rank. His academic record was so bad (I can't remember if there were finances involved, but I do know he got into whatever Naval college he went to, I don't remember the name, by the skin of his teeth, after a talk with his father about his performance) that he could pretty much only get into military colleges, which further set in stone his eventual enlistment in the military. It was this enlistment that got him into the Vietnam War and the POW camp in the first place. He talks a lot on TV about how he didn't take advantage of their offer to release him early, because of the first-in-first-out Code of the Navy (military?). He mentions that in the book. He also mentions, which I don't hear a lot on TV how it would have dishonored his father if he had done so, and that they only made that offer because he was an Admiral's grand/son. He talks about how his father (I believe, unbeknownst to him at the time) had orders to bomb the area where he was imprisoned, and did so, knowing his son was there, and that he might inadvertently kill him. He talks poignantly about stories he heard later about how his father would often stop and just stare in the direction of Hanoi, wherever he was, because it was the closest he could get to his son. But the thing that struck me most about all this... McCain resented his entrance into the military service, did so to please his grand/father, and ended up in a prison camp as a result. And he claims he never once resented his father for this. I'm sorry, I call total bullshit on this. I've seen too much and been trained too well to believe this for a second. I guarantee you there is part of him that is SCREAMINGLY FURIOUS about this. If he'd had therapy, I'd say maybe he's worked it out and gotten over it. The fact that he hasn't leads me to surmise that he's either lying, or extremely self-deceptive. My guess is the latter. I will point out that he retired from the Navy the DAY his father died - directly from the funeral to the office. Again, he claims no connection. Again, I call bullshit.
His second book, other than containing the aforementioned retirement, leaves me much more room for hope. He spends some time defending himself against certain allegations in his life - the Keating 5 incident you hear so much about, for instance. I do gather from that that he was fully exonerated, as was one other in the scandal, whereas the 3 others were found "guilty" of some wrongdoing. He's apparently friends with his ex-wife, as he mentions she stood up for him during this time. There was very little about his marriage, divorce, and re-marriage that stood out in the book, so I have nothing really to say about the scandals that people are harping about. No idea what his motivations were. His reasons in the book were generic enough that they didn't spark any interest. It's certainly not uncommon for people to come back from wars, POW or not, and get divorces. My (uneducated, in this case) guess is that that's what happened here, for the most part.
He does seem to be really into this whole pork-barrel spending thing he keeps talking about. This is a really big thing for him, and took up a decent amount of time (I say time, because I "read" the second book as an audiobook, so I don't have a "pages" perspective) in the book. He's also very much into bi-partisan cooperation. These things, as far as I can tell, are true.
While I disagree on (my own personal pacifism) principle on the conclusions he's come to regarding military action, I have come to the conclusion that he really does go out of his way to consider the options, and get feedback from sources he trusts before making a decision. He disagreed with Reagan early in his political career, and it was clearly hard for him to do; it sounded in the book like he idolized Reagan to some degree. In the second book, he also shows no love for Bush-the-current. Mostly, this was a personal issue - something about a presidential campaign where Bush snubbed him somehow. My conclusion from reading that was that he had no love lost for Bush, but that doesn't jive with what I've seen. Maybe they've made up? I just don't know on that one. Even so, having a personal conflict with someone doesn't necessarily affect how one feels about their politics.
He certainly acknowledges his apparently legendary temper, and cites some instances in which he wishes he'd kept his cool, and other times where it's served him well.
In general, I think he means well, and has some very strong ideas about integrity of government that I support, but his underlying psychology still scares me. He always talks about how his imprisonment was a turning point in his life, and I think that's true. He's certainly come a long way from the snot-nosed punk he was growing up. But I don't think it's been far enough.
Barack Obama
From a psychological standpoint, I like Obama a lot better. He's way less psychopathic (a la Core) than he is oral/rigid (also a la Core). This makes him, on the Good side, also good leader material, and a go-getter, and intelligent; and on the Bad side, needy and some degree of OCD (the OCD thing wasn't at all present in his books, and I don't necessarily mean it's anything other than making sure his shirts are properly ironed... it's just a supposition based on my knowledge of the rigid character structure). He doesn't mention therapy, either, but it's clear that he's a Seeker, and that he's gone out of his way to try and heal himself. It took time, and a lot of resistance on his part, but he did it. Yeah, he inhaled, and he also did some other drug, which he used the street name for, so not sure off the top of my head which it was... it was either that he tried cocaine and wouldn't touch heroin, or tried heroin and wouldn't touch cocaine. My guess is the former, since heroin is more notoriously addictive than cocaine, but I won't swear to it. Anyway, in his first book, which I truly believe he wrote before having any political aspirations, he is very frank about his early mistakes. He really does, to a good degree, exemplify the American Dream. Prior to college, though, I'm not sure how much one can say that he really experienced America like the majority of the country does. Hawaii is practically, as I understand it, another country, and he did live in Indonesia for a while. This, by the way, is where he went to both a Muslim school and a Catholic school, as I recall... both for 2 years each, I think. This was either because they were the best schools available at the time, or the only ones, or some combination of both. Not sure which. My personal thoughts on this are that it would be nice to have someone in a high office that has a basic understanding of Islam, especially the Islam as it was before the fundamentalists got a hold of it.
He's got all the stereotypical issues that you'd expect the son of a single mother who went through a couple of husbands along the way would have. Add to that a few of the stereotypical Angry Black Man elements, including some sort of connection with the Black Panthers back in the day. And all the made-for-TV-drama of that same person with those issues suddenly getting their shit together and deciding to go to college and make something of themselves. Then deciding to go to Kenya to find his roots, and his connection to the father he barely knew. Then coming back and deciding to go to Harvard. I don't have much to add to that. Pop culture psychology works just fine there.
I wish I had read his second book in that order. Instead, I read it first, and I think it affected my understanding of it a bit. I didn't have the psychological background on him that might have helped me put what he said in perspective, whereas I read McCain's books in their chronological order. What I do remember of it, though, is that he's very thoughtful. He elicits input, and thinks things over. This is a good thing. This can also be a bad thing, because it can make him less decisive when he needs to be decisive. Something Joe Biden mentions in his book about Jimmy Carter as a president was that he listened carefully, and then did what he wanted to do anyway, and that wasn't always what was recommended by the wisest of his counselors. Which, as always, puts the final decision in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief... so, in the end, we're left with that final buck-stops-here decision. It's unclear to me how wise Obama is personally. He seems wise, but I can't decide how much of that is beautiful rhetoric, and how much of that is true wisdom. There aren't too many stances in his book. He's actually in favor of most of the same good things McCain is in favor of - decreasing corruption in government, bi-partisanism, blahblahblah. Aside for the obvious Democrat/Republican schisms (abortion, social programs, economic programs), he's not that much different on the issues. (Of course, the ones he's different on are the HUGE things that divide the parties...)
But he knows his own mind better. He's willing to gaze at his navel and come out the other side. That makes him more trustworthy in my book. McCain is savvy. Obama is both savvy and intelligent.
Joe Biden
From a Core perspective, straight-up rigid character structure. Again, good leader with some ..er... rigid tendencies. He knew what he wanted from just about his earliest days, and studied exactly how to get there, and didn't let anything stop him from getting there. He found out just what it took to become a politician, and did that. That's why he became a lawyer - because lawyers became politicians. He busted his ass to get into a private high school. He found the girl of his dreams, and pursued her. She died, along with his infant daughter, and he (not without some deep pain) went on. His sister and her kids moved in to help out, which bears out all the things he said earlier in his book about sticking up for one's family. (Even, I might point out, if you knew they were wrong - defend them in public, debate them in private... not something I personally agree with, although I have the Libra in Mercury retrograde thing so that I could do both, and you wouldn't know the difference unless you were really listening/paying attention.) He almost reluctantly began dating again, and when she put him off year after year when he proposed to her, he finally gave her an ultimatum, and she tied the knot. He's a thrifty guy, salt-of-the-earth type. He explained the accusations of plagiarism to my satisfaction in his book, to the degree I don't think he's guilty of them. He's absolutely CRUSHED when his character is questioned. He's gone OFF on people who offer him money for even a hint at a push towards a specific political outcome, and stormed out of the office without taking the money. (His brother, who did his campaigning for him in most, if not all, of his elections, convinced the guy to give him the check anyway, and Biden ended up taking it, but it didn't seem to affect his voting record, as far as I can tell, then or later. He busted his ass to be a good father AND a senator at the same time, and damn near gave up his Senate seat to be with his kids after the death of their mother, and was only reluctantly convinced to continue. He's driven to a fault, which is why he almost died of the aneurysm. And why he recovered and kept going. Honestly, I can't find a whole lot wrong with Joe Biden. He offered some fantastic perspective on the whole War on Terror thing, and some great insights on foreign policy. Granted, I don't look into that sort of thing much, but lots of down-home savvy wisdom, from my perspective. Some of these things are now coming out in Obama's talks on foreign policy, whereas I didn't notice them before he brought Biden on. He also seems to be pretty on board with all the things Obama and McCain have in common.
Another quick note on him. I also read Hillary's book, Living History, back when she was in the race. I'm not going to critique the book, or her, here, but I will say that, comparing her book to Biden's, Biden is a much better fit to run with Obama, in my opinion. They fit well together, and I think there would have been a lot of friction between Clinton and Obama.
Sarah Palin
She's the hardest one to critique. Her book was written by someone else (someone in her church, I believe), and therefore doesn't have the same kind of insight I can glean from autobiographical works. In fact, the whole book reads like biographical books I read in elementary school. I was struck how much I was reminded of Helen Keller's Teacher, a children's book I read in elementary school. The book wasn't exactly glowing, but it didn't offer much to give me insight on her dark side, either. The book portrayed her as a model Alaskan citizen, God-fearing, moose-hunting, basketball-playing, hard-working, honest-as-the-day-is-long, and driven. Most of this seems to be the picture we're getting in the media, so can't argue with much there, other than that whole honest politician thing. Who can say? I find it interesting that she's coming off as such a ditz in her interviews. If the book is to be believed, she was devouring every newspaper she could get her hands on from an early age, and was totally interested in news and politics when other girls her age were interested in ...girly things. She majored in journalism and minored in political science, so there's nothing that leads me to believe that she should be ill-prepared, either to discuss issues, defend her point, or know how to handle the press. After all, that's what she was basically trained to do, and she WAS one of the press for a while. Granted, Alaska local news ain't national press, but still. So, I don't get it. Something doesn't match up, or else she's just really bad at this. Ditto the whole beauty pageant thing. It surprised everyone when she did it, 'cause she totally wasn't the type, but she did it to get the scholarship to college ...er, colleges. The whole college thing doesn't bug me much. Lots of people switch colleges, and yeah, it seemed mostly like she did it 'cause she missed her family and maybe was a bit on the needy want-my-mommy side, but that's mostly me reading between the lines, and not anything that was said in so many words. Anyway, that happens to a lot of people. She busted her ass to get into the offices she held - like Biden, did a lot of hoofing it door-to-door herself, sometimes with the kids in tow.
I did find it interesting that she ditched a sporting event with her family to elope at the local courthouse, and when witnesses were required, neither of them contacted family at that point, either, but went across the street to get a couple of people from the nursing home, even wheeling (at least) one of them over to be their witnesses. Now, the book doesn't say this, but in a TV show that did a biography on her (as well as Biden, but it pretty much followed what I said above, and already knew from his book), they blithely, and without comment or irony, went on to say that their first child was born 8 months later. Makes you wonder.............. And, of course, this wouldn't be an issue at ALL if it weren't for the potential hypocrisy of the abstinence-only things that she apparently believed in early on, and spouted, at the time. Certainly, she and Todd had been dating since high school. If nothing else, assuming the math is simply the math and that Track wasn't just premature, maybe that helps her have compassion for Bristol.
The book didn't go into any of the controversial stuff that's surrounded her. No mention of the deputy/brother-in-law thing (which might not have happened at time of publication) or the book-banning thing. No mention per se of the church stuff, other than she was a devout Saved Christian. It did mention that she pretty much fired all the staff of the office where she was Mayor, basically to let them know in no uncertain terms that she would tolerate no loyalty to the old regime. She hired the ones who basically agreed to be loyal to her the following week. The book talks a lot about her "not playing the game" of reporters and such. This kindasorta might help to explain what goes on with her and interviews now, but it doesn't quite match what's written, so again, hard to tell. It does cite her simply refusing to answer certain things, etc., which does match. Also, her official explanation about "TrooperGate" is consistent with her tactics at the Mayoral office.
Again, not much to say on her, because I don't have as much to go on. From a Core perspective, she's certainly got rigidity, and very likely psychopathy. My own personal sense, from nothing I can really put my finger on, is that there's some schizoid there somewhere, too.
Anyway, there's my 2 cents. I might make another post someday about my thoughts on certain issues, but I really wanted to get this perspective out there. Whether "character counts" for you or not, you might find it interesting. *shrug*
