McCain's doves

So the voters most hostile to the war are backing a potential commander in chief who makes Bush look gun-shy. More than three years before the Bush administration elucidated the radical doctrine of preemptive war, McCain unveiled a plan during his first run at the presidency called "rogue-state rollback," in which "we politically and materially support indigenous forces within and outside of rogue states" -- including Iraq, North Korea and Serbia -- "to overthrow regimes that threaten our interests and values." And if the "odious regimes" crack down on freedom fighters, the U.S. should respond with force. In that campaign, McCain was the neocons' choice against the more internationally "humble" George Bush.

McCain has advocated threatening North Korea with "extinction," and memorably sung about how we should "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." He agitated for military intervention in Darfur, regrets that we didn't send troops to Rwanda and is fond of rattling sabers in the general direction of Moscow and Beijing. During the U.S. bombing of Kosovo in 1999 -- when McCain showily suspended his presidential campaign because he'd rather lose a campaign than lose a war -- the senator drew media raves for managing to support the intervention while simultaneously slamming the president for not threatening more overwhelming force.

This easily discoverable uber-hawkishness runs in the family. His four-star Navy admiral father helped prosecute the war in Vietnam and delivered famous lectures about the role of U.S. sea power in making the world safe for democracy. His four-star Navy admiral grandfather worshiped at the altar of interventionist extraordinaire Teddy Roosevelt. If the U.S. has an imperialist class, as historian (and informal McCain advisor) Niall Ferguson has advocated, then John McCain sits at its head.

Still, too many people, wowed by the candidate's considerable charm, have convinced themselves that launching wars is for icky people like that Bush fellow, not Our John. "He knows war," the Des Moines Register wrote, in one of roughly 17,000 newspaper endorsements of McCain over the last two months, "something we believe would make him reluctant to start one." For Californians tempted by such delusions, it's wise to recall the famous words of the last septuagenarian to successfully seek the presidency: Trust, but verify.