A Pilgrim’s Digression

Although I have been rather quiet on the political front lately, I am still attentive to Presidential politics and want to make some comments on how I see the political season shaking out at this stage.

First of all, Ariana Huffington stole my idea that John McCain looks more and more like Bob Dole every time I see him on TV.  Both men were distinguished veterans and POWs, of course, but more than that I see a similarity in how both men are campaigning.  As I remember it, Dole had an angry contempt for Bill Clinton that did not serve him well in the election.  Dole’s only memorable line from 1996 was the plea, “Where’s the outrage?” in regards to Clinton’s reputed misdoings.

I detect a similar contempt from McCain and his cohorts in regards to Obama.  John McCain probably believes he is correct to repeatedly reference the Democrat candidate as “naive”, mock his “change we can believe in” slogan, and generally express disbelief that anyone would take this one-term Senator seriously as a Presidential candidate.  However, those tactics did not serve Clinton well when she used it against him.  What I find unbelievable is that inasmuch as the Obama/Clinton primary season was a ferocious war, John McCain seems like he didn’t learn its lessons.

And if McCain really wanted a history lesson, he could go back even further than 1996 to 1992, when a young, relatively inexperienced Governor from Arkansas toppled a popular sitting President and distinguished war hero.  I remember a certain contempt for Bill Clinton emanating from the George H.W. Bush camp, as well, back in those days.  Specifically, I recall the elder Bush repeatedly looking at his watch during an apparently boring debate with Clinton over domestic policy.  It would be an understatement to say that the President’s chance of winning was hurt by his impatience and disregard for the candidate and issues.

Thus I believe there is a road Republicans are better off leaving untraveled this year.   Republicans need an issue, and not a co-opted Democrat issue such as “change,” but something that is bigger than either candidate and that Americans, too, will come to see as transcendent.  Rush Limbaugh suggested yesterday that domestic oil drilling might be that issue, with gas prices continuing to rise.  I don’t know what specifically the issue might be, but “the vision thing” (or lack of it) coupled with a sneering contempt for one’s opponent, will kill McCain’s chances in this election.

That said, there is also a road Democrats must not go down.  There is a post at the Huffington Post today titled  McCain’s Secret Questionable Record.  The record referred to is McCain’s military record, and the HuffPo article is (in my opinion) nothing more than an attempt to smear McCain the way so many Democrats have been smeared by Republicans, John Kerry most notable among them.  Down this road lies a forfeiture of the moral high ground and a cold-hearted return to Rovian politics at its worst.

Democrats do not want to go down that road.  For one thing, Democrats do not fit the role of judge and jury of someone’s character.  They look petty when attacking someone on moral or character, and it is character, not wrong-doing, that is at the heart of this hit piece on McCain.  The author accuses the New York Times of publishing a “flattering lie” about McCain refusing a promotion to rear Admiral, yet this story did not come from McCain but from a former Secretary of the Navy.  Whether true or not, it is Secretary Lehman’s lie.

The article then goes on to speculate about McCain’s unreleased military records and what secrets they might reveal.  Was McCain given preferential treatment by his commanding officers because of his father and grandfather’s positions in the Navy?  Did his Vietnamese captors give him preferential treatment?  The latter charge in particular seems hardly credible, given the story of how his torturers “broke” McCain and forced him to sign one of their propaganda statements.  McCain was so badly beaten (his captors even re-broke one of his arms) that following this period of torture, another POW had to feed him, dispose of his waste, and tend to his wounds for a period of time.  If that’s preferential treatment, I don’t want to know what the North Vietnamese did to men whose fathers were not Admirals.

Did McCain crash too many planes?  Was he a hell-raiser whose antics were overlooked because of his father?  Was he stubborn, foolish, arrogant, superior-acting around his fellow POWs?

Heck, one might as well throw in the following (these are my satirical questions, not the author’s): did he use drugs?  Was he a regular customer of Vietnamese whores?  Did he have a venereal disease (remember that golden oldie about Bill Clinton?)?  Did he ever go AWOL?  Assault an officer?  Use a racial epithet for a Vietnamese person?  Was he ever arrested by MPs for being drunk and disorderly?

As the author says, all of these questions and more could be answered if McCain would release all of his military records, undeleted and complete.

Don’t go this route, Democrats.  Don’t do it.  It wasn’t right when Republicans did it to John Kerry, and it’s not right when Democrats do it to John McCain.