AnotherVoice

Waxahachie, Texas, March 29, 2005 -- Believing what I was raised to hold sacred, that every voice counts, I've bombarded my local paper for years with letters and op-eds (and been active in politics). Yet here in the heart of everyone's favorite "red state," where it's especially important that another voice be heard, no one seemed to be listening. This is my megaphone.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Is it heresy to call out McCain?

Once, many years ago, I had the opportunity to compliment the wonderful Katharine Hepburn, in a backstage visit after “West Side Waltz,” on her portrayal of her character as a maverick. I said I really related to that.

“Oh, but you know,” she said, in that slightly quavering New England voice, “it’s not always easy being a maverick!” She would know.

In the past, I admired Sen. McCain, to the point of contributing to his campaign in 2000. It had nothing to do with his military service or POW experience. I just admired what I saw as honor and fierce independence, and totally related to him as the maverick he seemed to be.

Apparently John McCain has also discovered that it is not always easy being a maverick, for it seems his “maverickness” has pretty well evaporated over the course of this campaign season.

Why do I say this? Well, consider the definitions of “maverick”:
(1) an unorthodox or independent-minded person;
(2) a person who refuses to conform to a particular party or group.
Now consider John McCain:

When President George W. Bush rolled out his tax cuts for the very, very wealthy at the expense of the economy (if you want to challenge me on this, line up your sources), Sen. McCain stood up in the Senate and objected:
I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief.
The maverick stood strong.

But in this year of the 2008 Presidential election, he wants to make those very tax cuts permanent.

John McCain, one who knows from personal experience, strongly opposed torture and led the battle for anti-torture legislation — until it came time to vote on it. Then he voted with the Bush administration against it.

McCain won enthusiastic praise from environmentalists, including me, when he came out for pro-environment legislation. He supported, for example, the long-established ban on off-shore drilling for oil; this year he is in favor of lifting the ban.

By the way, that won’t do anything to lower gasoline prices, my friends. The problem is not how much is still in the ground to be extracted (in 10 or more years from now when wells might be productive); the problem is that no matter how much is pumped out, China and India and other rapidly developing countries will continue to grow and consume enormous quantities of the supply, and the supply is finite.

Someday folks will get it: there are no more dinosaurs left to die off and create new pools of fossil fuels. Some of us learned that in the fourth grade.

McCain ran into huge problems with his party because of his support for comprehensive immigration reform. So how did he handle it? Without getting into the virtue of the legislation he had co-sponsored, it is enough to know that he has danced away from it in this election season.

Where’s the maverick?

McCain’s strength was that he appealed to voters as a “straight talker,” as someone who was willing to buck his party on any number of matters out of principle. He was no party-line guy, he was a truth-teller. But now we are left to wonder: Which truth?

It is reported that during his college years at the Naval Academy “McCain had conflicts with higher-ups, and he was disinclined to obey every rule, which contributed to a low class rank (894/899) that he did not aim to improve. … McCain did well in academic subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects he disliked, such as math.” (Wikipedia)

I respectfully remind the reader that we have just gone through almost eight years with a President who is disinclined to obey rules and does not aim to improve his ranking.

It has also been reported, with disquieting frequency, that McCain has a very short temper, once described by The Arizona Republic, his hometown newspaper, as “volcanic.” In the 2000 presidential primaries members of his own party who opposed his becoming their nominee seemed interested in linking his propensity for rage to his POW experience.

Now, the fact that he is known to swear like a sailor should worry no one in and of itself — note the analogy, after all! Even blasting away at colleagues in the Senate from time to time might not be cause for concern in a future President. But certainly we want to know what to expect in disagreements with heads of other states.

And we absolutely don’t want a President who hits the red button first and asks questions later.

So let me sum it up: John McCain was a fighter pilot during the Vietnam war; he flew many missions before he was shot down and captured and imprisoned, and he was kept in prison for five and a half years; during that time he endured torture.

His military career was distinguished as far as it went, including experiences that were heroic. But why must that now be the dominant narrative of his candidacy?

Perhaps because the John McCain we admired so much for refusing to conform to the party line is no more. He’s gone all orthodox on us. His turnabouts have not left him in fair play.

There is nothing left of the maverick — ironically, the one John McCain who might have had a chance of winning in November.

Originally published 7/4/08

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Just words?

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
— Patrick Henry, speaking before Congress in 1775

[W]e can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
—Abraham Lincoln, after the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
— FDR Inaugural, at the height of the Depression, 1933

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
— Winston Churchill, when the war was going poorly, 1940

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
— FDR Inaugural, 1941

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. …
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
— JFK Inaugural, 1961

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.…
I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.
— JFK, speaking at Rice University, 1962

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. …
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. …
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
— Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963

Just words. The stuff of true leaders.

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