In response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Op-Ed in
the New York Times, Senator McCain went to Pravda to voice his opinion on the
matter. Some have called McCain’s response “scathing” while a few see it as “stupid”. I agree with the latter.
President Putin constructed his Op-Ed as an argument to
deter the American people from supporting military aggression on Syria for its
(alleged and highly probable) use of chemical weapons. It was a nice piece of
writing even if it was not logically sound. Yet he ended his argument with a
personal opinion on the American people, which served no purpose other than to
elevate himself by lowering others. Of course, this last paragraph received the
most attention, which is another consequence of the president’s mistake; taking
readers elsewhere than his argument.
And here is where we find Senator McCain, ensconced in
Putin’s last paragraph. McCain’s Op-Ed in Pravda (why Pravda??) serves only two
purposes: to exacerbate a personal defensive reaction to Putin’s last
paragraph, and to add fuel to the diplomatic fire between the U.S. and
Russia. In short, McCain’s piece was
just that—a piece of ….
Not only did McCain ignore everything else in Putin’s Op-Ed,
he also intentionally and unequivocally interfered with Russian internal
affairs. It may be a nice high school debate tactic to focus on one aspect of
an opponent’s argument in an effort to trump the whole argument, but in college
this will not work, let alone international diplomacy. McCain did nothing to
address the glaring
holes in Putin’s argument, but instead underscored Putin’s statement that
Americans (McCain included) think their exceptional when they really are not.
The exceptional thing to do was to ignore that jab and concentrate on the issue
at hand: SYRIA!
As if that were not enough, McCain took it upon himself to
scathe Russian internal affairs—namely Putin, Putin’s governing, Russia’s
political system, and it’s mediocre international status. Where did this come
from? Nowhere did President Putin mention anything of the sort about America in
his Op-Ed. This is out of left—er, right—field. At the simplest level this is
akin to calling Putin a poopy-face, at the more complex level, like
international diplomacy, this can be seen as an attempt to usurp the presidency
of Russia. Which is it? Even if there is
a middle ground, political gumption persuades people to pounce on whatever
weakness they see. It should surprise no one if Putin counters with more
intensity. The situation did not need fuel, and McCain was only too happy, or
at least incompetent, to provide it.
So what is the lesson here? McCain simply let his emotions
overwhelm his reason. This is common
with humans; we all have done it and probably still do it from time to time.
Yet, McCain is a senator with responsibilities to his electorate and the
country. Attacking Putin and the Russian system, at least, serves neither. To
make matters worse, this response was not spontaneous. McCain had days to think over his response,
put it in writing, read over it, and could have ultimately scrapped it.
Emotions are difficult to manage and perhaps more difficult
to understand. Actions predicated on emotions are rarely appropriate and often
harmful. They do not aim to address, diffuse, solve or ponder a situation, but
in this case to attack a perceived offense. What about Syria? Apparently McCain’s attention fixates on how
one person views Americans in a very general way, and ignores the deaths of
100,000 people. Too bad. McCain needed more time to cool his jets, just like we all do sometimes.
