From the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine: Make-Believe Maverick, by Tim Dickinson.
This is a long and thoroughly researched piece that reviews John McCain's life from his days in the Naval Academy to the present, and shows how, time and again, every decision was made purely for his own self-interest. Among other things, it details the nepotism that allowed him to survive dismissal and advance throughout his military career, shines a light on the myth of his "heroism" as a POW, explains the Keating Five scandal and how that led to his embrace of campaign finance reform as a way to repackage his image, and traces the progression from occasional actual moderate to hard-line neocon. There's also a fascinating thread running throughout that describes how McCain learned to work the media, from the fire on the USS Forrestal through the cover-up of Cindy McCain's drug problems to playing a lead role in selling the invasion of Iraq as a quick and easy task.
Even if you already have a dim view of of McCain, you'll probably get a lot out of the exhaustive documentation. In any case, you should forward it to anyone you know who still buys into McCain's wholly fictional and consciously self-created image.
[Added] Companion video now available. Details here.
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