Sunday, September 9, 2018

John Sidney McCain III (1936-2018)

I was going to write about an exhibition that is coming soon to New York. I looked at my list of possible Missives and had a number of ideas, but I could not get the weekend of John McCain’s funeral out of my head.  I then wondered if a septuagenarian like me who has been to the left of … (there does not seem to be an opposite of “to the right of Atilla the Hun” so let’s say my German Jewish Parents) had a right to speak of a very conservative Senator who had served his country for 60 years.  Finally, after seeing his televised funeral service I realized though I had never met Senator McCain he would have told me to go ahead and write what I believed in.


I did, however, put a toe in the water first and wrote the following on Facebook, “What's on Your Mind?” (a question that pops up whenever signing onto Facebook) How can anything other than the funeral of John McCain be on our minds. I fervently hope that anyone who reads this and has young children tells them of John McCain, one of the too few who treated all people equally. I probably agreed with McCain hardly at all on political and social issues, yet he was always ready to listen, something that seems totally lost in our new political age. Politicians on both sides have only one interest which is to oppose anything and everything that the other side says. I am sure that ‘Mr. Smith’ would have no interest in going to Washington today. It is no longer a swamp but a stink hole with no principles. Never forget that John McCain was willing to walk across the aisle.”  With this posting I had more positive reactions on line, from more friends and strangers, than ever before!

I remember being most impressed when McCain crossed that aisle to work with his political opposite, Senator Hillary Clinton, of New York.  I did not realize that they genuinely liked each other and once even exchanged vodka shots on an official trip!


We have heard often the stories, particularly in recent weeks. of his failures and his errors, not only from the left but also from the right.  So why was John McCain considered a hero.  After all, as the current president once pointed out, cruelly, that he was not a hero because he was captured and a prisoner of war.  Personally, I can think of nothing worse that could happen to a person.  He was held and tortured for five years in a Vietnamese Prison camp. When he was offered the chance to get out because he was the son of an Admiral,  he refused to leave  without his team that went down in the plane with him.  He must have known he was going back to prison to have even worse torture inflicted on him, but he was an honorable man.

 He also lost in two runs for the presidency, first in the 2000 primaries against  George W. Bush, and then against Barack Obama in 2008.  For reasons I will never understand, some sort of death wish, he chose Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate.  Yet, after losing, he did not stomp off and do everything he could to undermine his opponents, but exited gracefully and continued the good fight for what he believed in. We learned listening to Obama’s eulogy at McCain’s funeral that they would get together from time to time in the Oval Office, with no one else around, to discuss family as well as policy.  They could even laugh together.  We have no information on exactly what they discussed but I believe when people get together with no agenda they inevitably influence each other.  If we do not know what the other is thinking how can we come to a successful agreement.


In the now famous anonymous editorial by a high ranking member of the administration in the New York Times regarding the inner workings of the White House he/she sums up my thoughts extremely well. The author, who may have been identified by the time this goes on line, writes, “Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.”

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