August 26, 2018
Senator John McCain died yesterday, after battling glioblastoma, the same cancer that killed Beau Biden and Senator Ted Kennedy. The tributes pouring in have been legion, none more fulsome than from many liberal Democrats. The backlash on social media has been critical of how, in our haste to mythologize Senator McCain, his conservatism has been overlooked. If for no other reason than to honor the Senator’s vaunted distaste for b.s., we should be clear eyed and honest in eulogizing him.
John McCain was a third generation Navy man whose callow youth ended when he was captured during the Vietnam War. He endured five years of torture and solitary confinement as a prisoner of war, famously breaking under pressure and signing a false confession and just as famously, refusing the early release offered because of his father’s stature.
After his release, McCain elected to go into politics, as his Navy career was cut short by the injuries he sustained during captivity. Elected to Congress in 1982 and then to the Senate in 1986, his career was nearly derailed by his involvement in the Charles Keating Savings and Loan scandal. Although he was cleared of criminal liability, McCain was rebuked by the Senate for his ethical lapses (Source: “John McCain, War Hero, Senator, Presidential Contender, Dies at 81,” by Robert D. McFadden, The New York Times, 8/25/18). McCain responded by adopting campaign finance reform as his cause, resulting, after many years, in passage of the McCain Feingold Act in 2002 (Source: ibid).
McCain cultivated an image as a maverick, occasionally bucking his party by voting with Democrats. Two examples stand out- early in his career he voted to override Reagan’s veto of sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa and most famously, just over a year ago, when McCain voted “No,” and doomed the Republicans’ repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Given Senator McCain’s consistent votes for repeal during President Obama’s tenure, we can only surmise that when the stakes were real, he simply chose to do the right thing.
On social media, commentary veers between those who wish to canonize him and gloss over his ultra-conservative militarism and his role in empowering the nativist, extremist wing of his party by picking Sarah Palin, and those who seek to vilify him based on those same things. The truth is that both viewpoints ignore the reality that John McCain was a flawed, but fundamentally honest American who strove to serve his country with honor. We cannot ignore the fact that John McCain showed real heroism when he was tested in a way that most of us will never be. He dedicated his life to serving his country in the way he thought best, with a worldview informed by his family background. In a party overrun by corrupt, hypocritical racists, McCain’s sense of basic integrity seems almost quaint. He was a person with whom we vehemently disagreed on policy, yet respected for his integrity. The contrast between John McCain and Donald Trump is almost too painful to contemplate. With John McCain’s death, we have lost the last decent Republican in Congress. That is something we all should mourn. Rest In Peace, Senator.
REFLECTING ON GIANTS
R.I.P. John McCain.
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As I listen to the accolades for the late Senator John McCain, I am struck by the way history works. A man whose adult life was accentuated by a sense of integrity has departed this world while a man whose entire life is devoid of integrity remains in The White House. The latter probably thinks he is the luckiest man alive because the media is not focused on the worse week since he took office. But the “distraction” created by McCain’s passing only highlights how disgusting Trumpocracy was, is and will always be. And that reckoning is on its way.
As I listen to the praise from politicians for someone who was undeniably the type of American leader many people would like to be, I think of the late Kennedy brothers – all Senators and each complicated and flawed men who evolved into American leaders we admire today. John McCain will be admired for generations, not simply because he was a tortured and loyal Prisoner of War in Vietnam, but because he clearly demonstrated that he believed that it was his mission to place the good of his country above his own. At times like these there is no great value in focusing on the flaws of such a departed one because the discussion, frankly, changes nothing about his or her life. But, like the Kennedys, McCain had to evolve to be the admired American that he is today. Did he?
Here is my problem. What does it mean to support “the good of his country?”
It was five years ago that my father joined the ancestors, having come up from poverty in Tennessee – not as an admiral’s son but as the Black son of a Black furniture maker – to pick cotton during summers and attend Morehouse College, to serve as a Brooklyn librarian, community organizer, servant of the City of New York for four years, servant of the State of New York for eight years, and servant of our nation in the U.S. House of Representatives for 24. Major Owens was brilliant and at any point in time could have stepped away to the private sector and made some serious money. My father did not support violence, including the murder of people during war, and he believed almost until the end in the America that could be, not the America that is.
Some politicians made their statements on the Sunday morning talk shows. John McCain was on Face The Nation 112 times. Major Owens stood up in the House of Representatives for an hour every Tuesday night for years speaking out against racism, militarism, imperialism and speaking for education, civil rights, human rights, and the way in which his constituents’ needs paralleled the needs of all Americans. What if Owens was on Face The Nation 112 times?
John McCain’s political perspective evolved – albeit slowly – to include human rights as a national priority. That was his privilege as a member of America’s most powerful class. For my father and so many of his colleagues in the political world, that privilege did not exist. Their perspectives have been forged by the harsh realities of American life.
For my father, “the good of the country” included EVERY step that we have taken as Americans to expand health care and labor rights or protections for all Americans, every step that we take to ensure the civil and human rights of every American, every step that we have taken to guarantee a quality education for every American, every step that we have taken to guarantee the right and opportunity to vote for every American and to promote maximum feasible participation, and every step that we have taken to ensure the economic advancement of the bottom 99% while the top 1% flourish.
My father was not afraid to earn the ire of many with some of his positions. My father was not afraid to cross Party lines. He did it on occasion. For Major Owens, however, the big picture was a very different “good of the country” than for John McCain, so there were fewer “causes” on the other side of those lines that merited the journey. We know this because John McCain’s political life included much more support of than opposition to the policies of Ronald Reagan, the George Bushes, and even Donald Trump.
It is sad and notable that McCain regrets the increased partisanship in Washington today. He helped to facilitate that partisanship, however, when he surrendered to “advisors” and selected Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential candidate and the disgusting politics that accompanied her ascension to the spotlight. He then helped to facilitate that partisanship when he failed to publicly and repeatedly repudiate the vicious attacks on President Obama (not candidate Obama), and when he failed to take on Mitch McConnell in a more public manner to curb the Majority Leader’s excesses (particularly with regard to Supreme Court and other judicial nominations as well as the tax law changes).
Most importantly, despite that one critical vote on health care, John McCain facilitated that partisanship when he failed to vigorously take on candidate Donald Trump in 2016 – something that would have probably changed history. McCain knew who Donald Trump was. Yet, after Trump’s nomination, McCain did not show the political courage and bi-partisanship in spurning Trump for someone who he knew would be a better President. Like 2008, he put his political party’s alleged interests above those of the country – a truly tragic flaw. No matter what his level of personal integrity, or the contents of his heart, his political legacy will be dominated by these failures.
My father also expressed regrets on his deathbed. He regretted that so much time had to be invested in trying to get all Americans to be treated equally, to righting so many wrongs. He regretted that after all of his years of work, “the rich will continue to get richer and exploit everyone else.” (This truly broke my heart.) Major Owens regretted that the John McCains of the world were among the many who do not fully understand the America that is and the America could be – the many Americans who do not fully understand what it means to place “the good of the country” ahead of privilege and inequality. In the end, these regrets endure.
Beautiful and fitting tribute.
well said. thanks!