John McCain

Up to now I’ve been holding off on writing about the passing of Senator John McCain, largely because there is not much anyone can say about him that hasn’t already been eloquently said. 

But having just listened to Joe Biden speak at the funeral of his lifelong political adversary and dear friend, I just can’t help myself. John McCain is a man I honestly feel is one of the great Americans of all time, even though I’ve disagreed with him on nearly every one of his policy ideas. 

I first became aware of John McCain when I was twenty-one years old and saw film of American POWs being released in North Vietnam. He was the son of an Admiral, and a fighter pilot who had been shot down and held in Hanoi for five and a half years. 

Think about it. He endured sixty-six months of abuse and torture, more than two thousand days of unrelenting misery. The thing  I found incredible about his story, the thing that really stuck in my mind at the time, was that because of his father’s rank he had been offered early release – and had refused to go home a single day before any of his fellow prisoners.

Could there be a better definition of the word, “Hero?”

More than a decade later John McCain resurfaced in the national spotlight as the newly-elected Senator from Arizona. Over the next thirty years I would occasionally read about him sponsoring a bill or espousing a cause, and each time I couldn’t help remembering the sight of that young pilot limping off the bus in Hanoi. When he ran in the primary for the 2000 Presidential election, I thought he would make a pretty good choice.

And then in 2008 he won the nomination as the Republican Presidential candidate. I wound up pretty firmly on the other side of the fence in that race, largely because of his choice of Sarah Palin on the ticket. As the overall tone of the campaign deteriorated into some of the most vitriolic and bigoted political rhetoric I’d heard in my lifetime, I was deeply disappointed.

Then came the town hall rally when candidate McCain handed the microphone to an elderly woman who rambled a bit in saying, “I can’t trust Obama… he’s an Arab.” Her meaning was clear, that she had bought into all the propaganda that McCain’s opponent was un-American and dangerous.

To establish some perspective here, this was a time when McCain’s running mate was appearing before huge crowds at her own rallies, shouting that Obama was, “…pallin’ around with terrorists” and gleefully encouraging chants of, “Off with their heads!”

But instead of letting the woman’s conviction that Obama was “an Arab” get swept up into the winds of hate and fear that were swirling around that entire campaign, McCain shook his head and took the microphone back from her. “No ma’am,” he said gently, “No ma’am. He’s a decent family man, a citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about.”

While this seemingly unremarkable moment drew little more than a smattering of applause and a few boos from that crowd, I sat in front of the television and literally wept with joy at the unhesitating instinctive intellectual honesty of John McCain. I truly believe that in that moment we were once again seeing an American hero at work.

And so our nation sends one of its most valiant sons to rest. As we listen to tributes from the many friends and colleagues from all corners of the political spectrum who clearly loved him, I hope and believe that in the next few years we will see an outpouring of essays and books about John McCain. And in those works, while the authors are celebrating the monumental achievements of the man and debate his shortcomings, I hope they also take the time to single out some of the countless simpler moments like the one with the woman at that rally, when McCain’s sense of fairness and common decency rose up to carry the day.

Rest well, Warrior. May your legacy endure.

Copyright © 2018 Michael Ball. All rights reserved.