John McCain for President

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On the afternoon of August 10, 1921 a 39 year old American man from a rich and distinguished family took three of his children out for an afternoon sail in the icy waters off Campobello Island in New Brunswick where his family maintained a summer home. His life to that point had been a charmed one. A beloved mama’s boy, handsome and carefree he’d managed to climb the political ladder based on his name despite having been a mediocre student at Harvard. When a chill came over him that evening he went to bed complaining of “lumbago”. When he would awake the next day he would find his life forever changed as the result of his being diagnosed with infantile paralysis which would rob him of the use of his legs for the rest of his life. At that point in time, Franklin Roosevelt found his character as many a man finds it — in extremis. The rest, as they say, is history.

On October 23, 1967 a young Navy flier was on his 23rd mission in the skies over North Vietnam at the controls of his A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bomber when a Soviet-made SAM missile the size of a telephone pole took the wing off his aircraft and he found himself injured and falling into a lake in enemy territory. Prior to that day this young man, also the son of a famous martial family, too had gone far on family connections. Consistently obstreperous and rebellious he had caused his admiral father considerable grief while racking up demerits at Annapolis pushing back against the academy’s powers-that-be. But on that afternoon as he floated in a lake in North Vietnam, John McCain would begin a remarkable odyssey of heroism, grit and determination that would mark him the rest of his life as an American hero. Tortured beyond human endurance after he refused early release which his captors would no doubt have used as a major propaganda victory, McCain would bear the price of this episode of pushing back against power the rest of his life every time he tried to raise his arms or comb his hair — actions the rest of us take for granted. And when the time came for his country to make peace with its old adversary, John McCain again led his party in making that peace.

After arriving on Capitol Hill in 1983, John McCain would again go against the prevailing tide in his party and advise Ronald Reagan that American Marines were serving no useful purpose in Lebanon and should be withdrawn. McCain was right and Reagan was wrong as would be borne out when a homicide bomber blew up his vehicle at the Marine barracks near Beirut killing hundreds of Marines. The Marines were then withdrawn and somewhere a young Saudi man from a wealthy background watched and saw an America that he viewed as weak. In 1990-91 McCain would find himself at the epicenter of the so-called “Keating 5″ case along with Senators John Glenn, Don Riegle, Alan Cranston and Dennis DeConcini. The five men were accused of violating Senate ethics rules by using their influence to aid savings and loan operator Charles Keating, a contributor to their campaigns, who would later go to prison for fraud. While McCain was thoroughly exonerated of any wrongdoing, unlike his other fellow accusees, he testified against Keating at his trial and from that point on would be at the forefront of those fighting against the so-called “money influences” in Washington.

When others in his party were accusing President Clinton of “wagging the dog” in going to war to stop the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo of Muslims undertaken by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, John McCain stood up and fought for Bill Clinton as doing the right thing and against the easy conventional wisdom of his own party. Likewise, when the war in Iraq was launched in March 2003 from the very beginnning of it John McCain criticized the president of his own party for not committing sufficient forces to the fight. And he continued this criticism until such time as President Bush finally saw the wisdom of that advice and doubled down in 2007 with General David Petraeus and the “surge” in Iraq that has turned the prospect of certain defeat there into a glimmer of hope for the future even though many Republicans at the time were ready to join the Democrats in abandoning Iraq.

When the conventional wisdom of his party and the Democrats was saying that everything was fine in the red hot real estate markets of 2005, John McCain stood up and fought for reform of the government sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who we now know were responsible for so much of the kindling that set off the fire that is now consuming the global economy. John McCain’s was a lonely voice in the corner warning the drunks at the party that tomorrow their hangovers would be hellacious. He was right but ignored and now we’re suffering for it.

Senator McCain’s opponent in this election likes to portray himself as a reformer and a contrarian but his record in this regard consists almost entirely of “talk” with no “walk” behind it. The United States, unlike its parliarmentary cousins, does not elect just a custodian of government machinery it elects a head of state. The world in which we live today is a dangerous one and getting more dangerous by the day. The next president will inherit two wars and be faced with the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran. The Islamic extremist threat from al Qaeda might be diminished in capacity but not in intent. Character and experience matters and John McCain has it in spades while Barack Obama’s resume in this regard is filled with contradictions and little evidence that he would have the type of spine Senator McCain has exhibited since that day forty one years ago when fate would intervene to test him in the most horrific of crucibles a man is likely to face on this veil of tears.

My late father, a regular Navy veteran and in the first convoy into Pearl after December 7th, loved John McCain and gave me Faith of My Fathers, McCain’s autobiography written with Mark Salter, shortly before he would be diagnosed with the cancer that would claim his life in March 2000. My dad was a fighter and a speaker of truth to power his entire life just as has John McCain. The polls suggest that Senator McCain faces long odds on Tuesday. I agree but I will stand with Senator McCain on Tuesday as the best man to lead our nation in these troubled times and if he loses I will join with him in congratulating Senator Obama and supporting him where we can to keep our country safe and great. After all, after this election’s over it’s very simple — “Country first!”