As Obama Signs DADT Repeal, Let's See 2005 John McCain Criticize Himself

Despite Republican attempts to stick in a last-minute defense appropriations amendment that would kill the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal, President Obama finally signed it into law today, hooray. But while this simple measure to make this country more fair and equal was a no-brainer for most Americans, it was not for John McCain, who very nearly found a way to kill it. Coincidentally, your editor happens to be home for Christmas and found a copy of John McCain's 2005 book  Character Is Destiny,  which a relative gave him on a previous holiday but he never read. And according to the John McCain in this book, John McCain has atrocious character for taking the position he has taken.

 Character Is Destiny is basically a ripoff of John F. Kennedy's Profiles In Courage . Like Kennedy's book, this is a collection of short biographies of important figures notable for brave dedication to their character, and probably was not written by McCain himself. But he does provide a first-person introduction, a meditation on character and his honorable, boob-TwitPicking family.

To explain the title, McCain says he doesn't believe in destiny; he believes what we get out of life is based on how well we live it, in terms of character. So if, say, you become a hollow shell of a human, routinely mocked for baselessly denying people their civil rights, you deserve it! Hmm!

Our character is a lifelong project, and perhaps the older we are, and the more fixed our shortcomings are, the more we can use inspiration to encourage the restraints of our deficiencies.

Or we can whine and hengh about it, angry that we lost the presidency and doing all we can to spite our former adversary.

John McCain usually can get out of self-criticism by just believing he is always right.

the only person who must believe in your integrity is yourself

But that doesn't leave out self-contradiction. According to McCain, a male teacher once taught him to love William Shakespeare, a writer of drama, which is something those gays do.

I imagine you know some of his plays and remember some of their most famous lines. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood for me shall be my brother. Those two lines are from my favorite play, Henry V .... It is a soldier's play, and I have never tired of it.

He had never tired of it, until now. Soldiers who have shed blood for our country were John McCain's brothers. But then he realized some of them are gay and the blood they shed probably has gay cooties. So, you know, nice try , but gay veterans aren't John McCain's brothers.