What Others Are Saying

This book excoriates John McCain as a calculating flip-flopper and the media for mythologizing him as a straight shooter. Welch, assistant editor of the Los Angeles Times' editorial pages, compares McCain's "ritual self-criticism" to Alcoholics Anonymous's 12-step program: First, he admits his flaws, then he sublimates them to a greater cause, and finally he takes that cause to the people. The book contains entertaining tales of equivocation aboard the Straight Talk Express.
-- Washington Post

One of the best writers working today. ... The upshot of Matt's book: What you think you know about McCain is probably wrong. I love a good, old-fashioned debunking, and Matt's writing is so fun that even reading about stupid old politics seems like time well spent.
-- Jackie Danicki

Matt does a terrific job stripping away all the facile depictions of Candidate McCain by the press, showing that "much of what we think we know about John McCain is wrong." For example, Matt writes that the "Straight Talk Express" man "does not, for instance, talk particularly straight." Very oddly, as Matt shows, nothing seems to invigorate the guy like a lost cause. And "the man of the people" really isn't, but likely got the reputation for it via his coziness with the men and women of the press, giving unprecedented access to journalists; or, as Matt puts it, "about every national journalist who has a question," and even invited feature writer Michael Lewis to stay at his apartment to cover the 2000 presidential campaign.
-- Amy Alkon

A smashing new book on John McCain. I can't recommend it highly enough.
-- Luke Ford

How the journalistic elite got taken for a ride on the Straight Talk Express is one of the revelatory sagas of modern-day Washington. Matt Welch has the audacity to think that John McCain's views matter, not only his legends, and he smokes out McCain with gusto. You don't have to follow him every inch of the way into libertarian politics--as I do not--to be dazzled by the light he casts on a telling tragedy of American politics.
--Todd Gitlin

A few months ago, I was drinking with William Langewiesche, and I told him, he was one of my three favorite writers.

"Who are the others?" he asked, and when I said, Joan Didion and Matt Welch, he sort of made a little face and said, "Who is this Welch guy?"
-- Nancy Rommelmann

Welch really has McCain’s number, in distinct contrast to the media usual slavering over McCain’s supposed Incredible Honesty and Maverick Status. Having declared myself a mortal enemy of McCain, I would not be able to bear reading another media personality servicing McCain in prose. This book does not do that, I am pleased to report.

Matt's writing style is very snappy and entertaining. He comes at the issues with a point of view, but discloses it up front — just like you wish journalists would do. And he really, really lets McCain have it.
-- Patrick Frey, Patterico's Pontifications

In the event that a McCain surge does materialize, the antidote is Matt Welch's new book McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, a comprehensive dissection of the man who for a long time held the title of America's most overrated politician and who still in many circles is viewed as something of a sympathetic, tragic figure.

In the book, Matt builds upon some earlier writing of his on McCain through the revolutionary (given the subject matter) method of actually examining McCain record and views than the more traditional approach of wishful thinking and ideological projection. In essence, it's the story of a man who succeeded in turning his own life around through embracing hard-line American nationalism and then decided to adopt this as a governing philosophy before becoming a media darling in a way that left him simultaneously overexposed and underanalyzed.
-- Matthew Yglesias, The Atlantic

Do you have special heroes who help you decide what to do in your life or whatever? John McCain sure does! And they tend to be fictional characters from ridiculous juvenile books and movies, generally about how romantic it is to get shot down or blown up for some pointless bullshit cause that was always a losing proposition that wasn't even wanted by the people it would ostensibly benefit. In other words, McCain is a 70-year-old man who still reads Hemingway books. But does he have a brave-Mexican-revolutionary costume for Halloween?

We're reading this McCain: The Myth of a Maverick book because a) the author gave us a roll of twenties and b) wow, McCain is far more of a sociopath than we ever figured. He's also a childlike figure who sees the real world through the magical prism of his make-believe best friend, the doomed communist and "home grown terrorist" Robert Jordan, who tries to do terrorism in a foreign country but ultimately accomplishes nothing more than screwing a teenaged Spanish gal and having lots stiff boring conversations with some old woman named after Hemingway's boat. And then he gets killed and the Fascists win, again, the end.
-- Ken Layne, Wonkette

Here's a book worth checking out.
-- Steve Kurtz, Pajama Guy

I haven't read this yet, but I did order it. At Amazon, you'll notice that the lefty contingent - Atrios, Yglesias, and the like - love the book. That doesn't mean it's a bad book. In fact, given that Matt is an extremely good writer, it's probably an excellent book.
-- Bill Quick, Daily Pundit

Matt Welch's new book on John McCain looks interesting, though fortunately for the country, I don't think he's going to be either nominated or elected.
-- Rand Simberg, Transterrestrial Musings

Matt Welch usually has something interesting to say, and his new book, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick , will no doubt be fascinating.
-- James Fulford, VDare

Outside the ballroom [of the Conservative Political Action Conference], the discontent was plain to see. Citizens United distributed a 22-page booklet entitled, "He's No Ronald Reagan: Why Conservatives Should Not Vote for John McCain." It was snapped up almost as quickly as copies of the libertarian magazine Reason, which featured a cover story called, "Be Afraid of President McCain."
-- Richard Wolffe, Newsweek

The April issue of the libertarian Reason is a contrarian feast and includes the Los Angeles Times' Matt Welch portraying Sen. John McCain as a frightening, authoritarian loon with scant respect for individual choice and a reflexive fondness for government power.
-- James Warren, Chicago Tribune

Matt Welch has a piece in the latest issue of Reason detailing the myriad reasons limited-government types should fear a McCain presidency, among them: McCain's fascination with Teddy Roosevelt, his indiscriminate hawkishness, and his affinity for National Greatness Conservatism, libertarianism's bete noire.
-- Gene Healey, Cato-at-liberty

Since I wrote enthusiastically about John McCain [previously], for the sake of balance I want to recommend Matt Welch's interesting and worrying portrait, which shows another McCain, obsessed with "national greatness," who wants a stronger presidency and mandatory national service.
-- Johan Norberg

Generally, McCain's a "big government" Republican. Matt Welch, who's assistant editor at the L.A. Times, has done some excellent writing on McCain's philosophy on government.
-- Donald Douglas, Burkean Reflections

Who's the worst candidate? Reason Magazine makes a strong case for/against John McCain.
-- Dan Belforti, host of Left, Right & Correct

Might put a chill down your spine.
-- Miguel Centellas.

Exposes McCain's big-government megalomania.
-- David N. Mayer.

I hope a lot of Americans read Matt Welch's definitive LAT editorial on the subject of McCain's political philosophy.... [I]t should be a reputation-maker for Welch.
-- Colby Cosh

The redoubtable Matt Welch does the unconscionable today: he writes an op-ed for the LA Times in which he examines John McCain's actual views on the issues.... Hear hear.... [McCain's] flip-flops get a lot of attention mainly because they're easy to find and satisfying to point out. Actually looking past his occasionally "maverick" views is far more important.
-- Kevin Drum, The Washington Monthly

Matt Welch of the Los Angeles Times does a significant public service in exposing John McCain's intrusive, statist agenda.
-- Doug Bandow, 4Pundits.com

Kudos to Matt Welch for managing to reveal some truths about St. McCain without falling into the usual trap of trying to argue about where he actually fits on the imaginary political spectrum and instead just telling us what the dude thinks about things.
-- Duncan "Atrios" Black, Eschaton blog

In an astute analysis, Matt Welch of the Los Angeles Times recently wrote: "If his issues line up with yours, and you're not overly concerned by an activist federal government, McCain can be a great and sympathetic ally."
-- Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Matt Welch, editorializing in the LA Times, succinctly summarizes my real problem with McCain: he tries to make the government a solution to everyone's problems. He may or may not still be a wavering maverick, but he's never been a conservative.
-- Lucas Sayre, Daily Contentions

For a section of the newspaper which all too frequently has peddled meaningless blather of the kind favored by "humorist" Joel Stein, Welch's article Sunday was a welcome departure in its commitment to taking on a serious subject in a definite way. I hope we see a lot more of him in this section in the future.
-- Ken Reich, Take Back the Times

Matt Welch, now with the Los Angeles Times, perspicaciously sizes up everyone's favorite politician -- especially given that no one seems to actually care about his political beliefs -- Sen. John McCain. [...] [R]ead the whole thing, before this whole "McCain for President" thing goes too far.
-- Brian Doherty, Reason magazine

Let me be the umpteenth blogger to send kudos to Matt Welch for his well-written dissection of McCainism as a potential governing philosophy. The L.A. Times needs more Welch in the op-ed, and less everybody else....
-- Steve Smith, The Idiotarian Savant.