I don't think about John McCain, because he's part of the old world, the dead America.
- The rapper Nas, “Q&A
Nas,” Rolling Stone, July 10-24, 2008.
A post at Gay Patriot yesterday speculated that the mainstream media has largely accepted
Obama's life-narrative and worldviews because they figure this is
their shot to be a part of history. Certainly that's been the
heady message which Obama's supporters have internalized. They're so
sure of it, they can't imagine anything else coming close. My comment to that post said as much.
That said, it's been a GOP truism that Obama can't be
beaten on image, and instead can be beaten only on issues, facts, character. Obama is an extreme liberal (not "post-partisan");
Obama is a ruthless and tainted, Chicago-bred machine pol (not an
"idealist"); Obama not only enjoys the enthusiastic
support of most of the world's "Jamal the Plumbers," he
enjoys (and occasionally cultivates) support from the anti-American,
anti-liberal, and anti-Zionist demagogues who rule them (hence, he
lacks " judgment"). All of the above are objectively true,
and have been amply demonstrated - by conservative
bloggers generally, of course, rather than by the mainstream media.
But what if John McCain's presidential bid were just
as historic as Barack Obama's? Shouldn't anyone coming
so far to gain a major party nomination deserve to be esteemed on
that merit alone? What if John McCain - the life-narrative of John
McCain - were upheld, admired, revered even (as his
Democratic endorser, Lynn Forester de Rothschild declared on CNN)? What if John
McCain's life were already historic? What if a John McCain
presidency fit squarely in a great and already-established
American historic tradition, one which should be apparent to all
Americans?
The lost story of this presidential election is that
John McCain's life and potential presidency already are historic. Sadly,
however, what makes them so are not on the tip of people's
tongues. They should be. Our media and
cultural powerbrokers hardly see this as worthy of mention, let alone
worthy of inquiry, admiration, and cause for pause and reflection.
These people are not even capable of conceiving of McCain's
virtues, I venture. (When his age is mentioned it's as a
liability exclusively, not as a source of wisdom and moderation.) So few of today's cultural powerbrokers - including his
opponent - have ever risked anything close to what John McCain risked
(and lost) to earn them. Risked not just for his country, but for
another, far-off country. For them to conceive of John
McCain's virtues, and then to inform the public of them would be highly
inconvenient. It would get in the way of their being a part of the
election of Barack Obama.
* * *
It wasn't always that way, and it doesn't have to be
that way.
Curiously, the following excerpts from a Thomas Wolfe
short story, "The Four Lost Men," shed light on this situation. The story appears (in its abridged version) in the
collection From Death to Morning. (Click here for discussion of the original, long version.) Set in June 1917, shortly
after the US had entered WWI, Wolfe contrasts his 16 year-old
sensitivities to his aged father's undying esteem for post-bellum
Republican presidents - all of whom were veterans of the American
Civil War. Wolfe's special power in this tale is to imagine these
men's minds, not as elder statesmen, but as young wartime leaders
passionately enamored with life and death, with duty and nation, with
hope and wonder and agony and loss.
The lessons, concerns, and even obsessions which
Wolfe visits are as timely today as they are undying - just like the
historic life of John McCain. Here's just one excerpt. Please click through and read them all in sequence.
[My
father] spoke then with familiar memory of the lost Americans – the
strange, lost, time-far, dead Americans, the remote, voiceless, and
bewhiskered faces of the great Americans, who were more lost to me
than [ancient] Egypt ... – and whom he had seen, heard, known,
found familiar in the full pulse, and passion, and proud glory of his
youth: ... the proud, vacant, time-strange, and bewhiskered visages
of [post-bellum Republican presidents] Garfield, Arthur, Harrison,
and Hayes.
The
first vote I ever cast for president,” my father [said] ... “I
cast in 1872, in Baltimore, for that great man – that
brave and noble soldier – U. S. Grant! And I have voted for every
Republican nominee ever since.... [In 1893] the Democrats were in and
we had soup kitchens. And, you can mark my words,” he howled,
“you'll have them again before these next four years are over –
... before that fearful, that awful, that cruel, inhuman and
bloodthirsty Monster [i.e., President Woodrow Wilson] who kept us out
of war [from 1914 until 1917],” my father jeered derisively, “is
done with you – for hell, ruin, misery, and damnation commence
every time the Democrats get in. You can rest assured of that!” he
said shortly, cleared his throat, wet his thumb, lunged forward
violently and spat again.
* * *
