Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

The new McCain?

It’ll be interesting to watch the Armed Services Committee hearing today on Obama’s Pentagon picks in part to see how John McCain behaves. As he returns to Congress, McCain is for the first time in many years not running for president. My guess is he will be essentially the same, but tougher and even less ...

589470_090115_John_McCain_1.15_resized2.jpg
589470_090115_John_McCain_1.15_resized2.jpg

It’ll be interesting to watch the Armed Services Committee hearing today on Obama’s Pentagon picks in part to see how John McCain behaves.

As he returns to Congress, McCain is for the first time in many years not running for president. My guess is he will be essentially the same, but tougher and even less controllable, especially on issues like the future of the super-expensive F-22 fighter. (I recently was reading an excerpt from a 1935 article in the Army’s Infantry Journal — doesn’t everybody? — and was surprised to see that back then an airplane was far less costly than a tank. That is certainly not the case now.)

“The fun thing to watch will be McCain at Armed Services now that he understands that is where he must make his mark,” says one veteran Senate aide. “Lots of hard, hard choices on defense spending and McCain still has the energy to play a significant role, which is bad news for a lot of defense contractors.”

SAUL LOEB/Getty Images

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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