More on McCain, who seems never to have encountered a
conflict that to his mind should not have been resolved better by the sustained
application of American military force. Whether it's Iran or the Ukraine, war
is his answer. I dimly recall that he somewhere expressed some measure of
regret for his 23 bombing sorties over Hanoi, and the civilian casualties
incurred, but even if so this did nothing to modify his passion for military might.
By all accounts, he was a fuck-up at the Naval Academy,
graduating near the bottom of his class and perhaps only because he was the son
of Admiral McCain. I've heard the same from someone who served with him, and
thought him the wildest womanizer he'd ever known.
Wild and crazy John McCain.
But McCain picked up something along the line, something that
has motivated him to step up to Trump as other senior republicans won't. McConnell,
Ryan, Cruz, Christie — fearful, opportunistic toadies to the end. They'll let
Trump tear up the best things about the United States if it let's them forward
their careers and/or conservative agendas as he does so.
I don't look for perfection from politicians.
Senator William Fulbright is my model in this regard. He opposed
all the legislation LBJ put forward to address the legacy of racism. No
question, Fulbright, Senator from Arkansas, was racist. But the hearings he called
to look into and judge the war in Vietnam may have done more to galvanize
opposition to it than all the wild and crazy protests I attended.
Of course, those wild and crazy protests were necessary.
My mother listened to the Fulbright hearings. They got her
attention because I was part of these wild and crazy protests. She needed someone
like Fulbright to make sure that what I was doing, if not the way I was doing
it, made sense.
No comments:
Post a Comment