Sen. John McCain launched his “Service to America” tour at Mississippi State University with a proud-patriotism speech that colorfully recounts his family’s history of military service. It’s hardly a surprising move for a Republican candidate who will rely on his military history to appear more experienced and resolute than his Democratic rival (whoever that may be). But nearly everyone with an opinion has come up with reasons why the speech wasn’t a good idea.

The New Republic bloggers Jason Zengerle and Barron YoungSmith compare McCain’s approach with those of two Republicans he doesn’t want to emulate: Bob Dole and George W. Bush. Zengerle writes that the McCain speech is Dole-esque for its “soaring meditations on valor and honor, but ones that ultimately make the candidate seem archaic and leave voters depressed rather than excited.” He then floats the fascinating idea that this approach works with reporters, who appreciate the melancholy of an aging idealist, but will come off as depressing to the “average Sprint guy.” Probably true, but is McCain really trying to win over the average Sprint guy right now, or is he still after the Republican base? A good guess is the latter, and that we’ll see different aspects of McCain’s record highlighted when average Sprint guys start paying attention.

Beliefnet’s God-O-Meter finds the speech surprising for its lack of pandering to evangelicals, but believes it may contain “a veiled pitch to the Christian Right, laying out his views on the primacy of family and the government’s role in protecting the family unit as the building block of society.” Also probably true, but what if the whole thing was a not-so-veiled pitch to the Christian Right? Does God-O-Meter get that the religious right loves the military almost as much as it loves the family?

The speech apparently reminded Frank Schaeffer, disenchanted son of the late Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer, how much he hates the Iraq war. At the Huffington Post, he echoes YoungSmith’s point about McCain’s “lone veteran parade” ethos, arguing that McCain’s sense of “honor” makes him too attached to the military to make detached presidential choices:

That is McCain’s problem: the Iraq War is too deeply personal to him. He also has had a son serving, but I mean something else. I mean that McCain confuses his personal ethic of past military service with future policy. Listen to McCain speaking and you hear an old man looking backward while articulating a litany of maudlin references to his sense of honor, service and sacrifice as the main reason for electing him.

Schaeffer’s point seems interesting, but directly after the above paragraph, it leaps from historically informed analysis into a shallow political screed: “McCain seems ready to sacrifice the American future to his sense of past personal honor. Why else would he be refusing to admit his mistake of supporting the Bush fiasco?”

McCain has strongly criticized administration officials for their handling of the war (saying it was “terribly mismanaged,” and Rumsfeld is “one of the worst defense secretaries in history”). But this fact is lost on Schaeffer, who is too loudly insisting upon a “completely fresh start” (translation: Obama) and “the good of the American people” (translation: unconditional withdrawal) to notice that McCain admits that the war’s handling has been sometimes disastrous. Instead, Schaeffer says, “If we are to get out of the mess [Bush] made we need good judgment and a ruthless disregard for any concern other than for the good of the American people.”

McCain’s speech was an unsurprising reiteration of his military cred, designed to ingratiate himself with his party’s military-loving base. And since most of the country is still on pins and needles watching Obama vs. Hillary, its impact is not likely to go much further.