Memo to McCain: There are no saints in America, not even St. Ronnie
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Memo to McCain: There are no saints in America, not even St. Ronnie
The former president is certainly a suitable subject for public debate. His supporters credit him with forcing down the Iron Curtain, so it is odd that some of them have helped create the Soviet-style chill embedded in the idea that we, as a nation, will not allow critical portrayals of one of our own recent leaders.
-- New York Times editorial, Nov. 5, 2003.
Anyone feeling a cold blast tonight? I am, and it's coming courtesy of Sen. John McCain, the man who might have been sitting in the Oval Office tonight as the 44th president -- if the economy had only waited two months longer to tank, and had Sarah Palin not made the acquaintance of one Katie Couric. In his race for the White House, McCain's effort to prove to the GOP's right wing that he wasn't really a moderate-to-conservative-to-liberal-to-conservative-again flip flopper led him to grab the Ronald Reagan mantle so hard he practically ripped it right out the fireplace.
He said he'd been a foot soldier in the "Reagan Revolution" and made a fantastical claim about celebrating Reagan's political ascent from his Hanoi prison cell -- while ignoring the reality that as a center-right newcomer to Congress in the 1980s, he frequently criticized the Gipper and opposed him as often as one-third of the time. Whatever..it was politics, and it still didn't get him to the White House.
But the election is over now, and I find this pretty disturbing. McCain is saying that he may vote against an Obama appointee for the sole reason that the nominee made what strikes me as a fairly tepid criticism of the 40th president, in a comment that was really aimed at George W. Bush. Check this out:
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain today denounced as “highly offensive” remarks about Ronald Reagan made by President Barack Obama’s nominee for the number two spot at the Department of the Interior.
At a nomination hearing for David Hayes for deputy secretary of Interior, the former Republican presidential candidate read aloud from an article that Hayes wrote in April 2006 which drew unfavorable comparisons between former President George W. Bush and Reagan.
When the headline came over in a Google news alert today and I read the first paragraph, I prepared to cringe -- what Hayes said about Reagan, who died on 2004 and whose widow Nancy is still alive -- must have been truly awful, right? But here's what Hayes wrote in 2006:
“Like Ronald Reagan before him, President Bush has embraced the Western stereotype to the point of adopting some of its affectations—the boots, brush-clearing, and get-the-government-off-our-backs bravado.”
Where's the blasphemy? Reagan and much more so Bush really were urban cowboys with a strange obsession for brush clearing that seemed to evaporate the same hour their presidencies expired, when the Reagans headed for a tony, supporter-built mansion in the L.A. hills while Bush abandoned Crawford for the mall district of Dallas. "Bravado" can be a politically loaded word, to be sure, but...."highly offensive"? Really, John McCain (who once told this joke about Chelsea Clinton, but I disgress...)? McCain actually said he may not vote for Hayes because of the Reagan remark.
Last time I checked, this is America, not the Vatican. We are a nation with heroes by the boatloads, but no civic saint. No public figure, living or dead, should be immune from legitimate criticism -- to seek to block a person from a political office for making such a relatively innocuous public writing is chilling indeed. That such an anti-speech move would come from the man who almost placed his right hand on the Bible to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution..." is appalling. America will never solve its problems of the present without honest appraisals of past leaders like Reagan, warts and all.
As a quick footnote tonight, on the same subject of tearing down myths, kudos to a Republican state senator from California named Roy Ashburn, who voted for a budget that included tax increases to keep the Golden State from plunging into the abyss. Ashburn staved off a recall drive by noting he was just following the example of Reagan, who enacted the largest tax increase in U.S. state history as California governor in 1967. I guess facts really are stubborn things, after all.
(Photo at top from Buzzflash)
Nearly every day I think about the ruin our nation would be in had McCain-Palin actually been elected. For example, it is clear that today the government would be shut down because McCain would have vetoed the budget. And think who might be Treasury Secretary instead of timid Tim!
"Last time I checked, this is America, not the Vatican. We are a nation with heroes by the boatloads, but not a single saint." How about Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first native born American saint? St. John Neumann and Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini are considered US saints as well? You may have read or seen the college. Again do not let facts get in the way of the liberal medieval way.— Fisher- I meant in the civic arena, but I changed the wording because it was confusing as written. You didn't even mention Philly's own Katharine Drexel!— will
- Here is a headline not covered in INJY "Between 40 and 45 percent of the world's wealth has been destroyed in little less than a year and a half," Schwarzman told an audience at the Japan Society. "This is absolutely unprecedented in our lifetime." Now why did so much of the world's wealth disappear? What were the bad deals, how interconnected are the banks and insurance companies?— Fisher
Comment removed.- I pray every day to Saint Barack that you get RIF'ed.— BlairW
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Wil, your book is at 1461 on amazon. No matter how much you flog this thing it ain't gone help your 401K. You're screwed!You are stalking a dead man. Very sad.— georgel- Comment removed.
- This article falls under the extreme "who cares" department. McCain thinks highly of the gipper. Maybe he bought into a myth, maybe not, but so what. The fact is that McCain is still kicking after losing the election and you know why. He has issues that go beyond simple ego. Of budget responsibility that has put both republicans and democrats to shame. That is why McCain will be revered in the future as imperfect a man as he is.— cberger42970
- My God, Will actually knows a saint! I'll keep saying a rosary for you, Will, in hope that you may someday see the light. Only this time, the light is not visible from one ear through the other.— JingoGuy
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- All of you fans of the Gipper, relax. Once in public office always a target or hero. He'd be the first to acknowledge. Bunch is just doing what writers do...making his observation, right or wrong. He makes a point which facts don't deny, the Gipper and Georgie both exited the "brush" immediately when time in office ended. Criticism is essential to democracy..relax and don't be so thin skinned.— stoneman
"No public figure, living or dead, should be immune from legitimate criticism." This as Newsweek runs a cover of Rush Libmaugh, with a black bar covering his mouth, along with the caption 'ENOUGH'. Whatever you say, Will.— jmc
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