Goldfarb:
We were prevented from mentioning it and that was very frustrating to a lot of people on the campaign.
[snip]
Everybody wanted to go in that direction, besides John McCain, I think.
Now obviously, there is a potential argument to be made that the decision was less about McCain's personal honor and was simply good political tactics, if one takes the belief that the blowback would have been worse than any potential benefit of whacking Wright around like a pinata all campaign season long.
Chris Bodenner takes this tack on a guest-post titled "Pragmatism, Not Honor" on Sullivan's site:
John McCain's top pollster, Bill McInturff, said this evening that attacking Barack Obama over his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright would not have helped McCain's campaign and could have destroyed his presidency, had he been elected.
Some Republicans were angry during the campaign that McCain had -- reportedly for reasons of principle, and out of concern that he'd be viewed as racist -- refused to air ads with Wright's inflammatory sermons.... "I said 'Look, if we do win we’ll win with about 273 electoral votes and we’ll lose the popular vote by 3 million,'" recalled McInturff of the internal discussions about cutting attack ads with Wright. "If [McCain] had used that issue that way, you’d already be delegitimized as a president. You couldn’t function as government."
Ultimately, for me, I think there is too much evidence in McCain's own life and political career that highlights his deep sense of honor, his war-service chief among them, to think that he is nothing more than the most cynical self-serving politician (see Blagojevich, Rod). One of the most humanizing things about him is the various confessional moments he has had where he publically regrets and recants things he has said or done in pursuit of political goals. Every politician is forced to compromise his/her principles to a degree, but McCain seems to struggle with it much more than most.
Yet, somewhat oddly, it was his seeming commitment to national honor (a national greatness conservative in the Teddy Roosevelt strain) that made me even less disposed to him than I may have been otherwise. His frequent appeals to "bring our troops home with honor" from Iraq (while I acknowledge this was simply a campaign talking point) reflected in my mind McCain's belief that this was an objective that was worth fighting for, literally.
From some of his statements, I get the sense that he would have been willing to sacrifice another 58,000+ American lives in Vietnam if that would have guaranteed an "honorable" victory. But, for me, I think there is a muddy line between adherence to principles and blind dogmatism.
The "domino theory" that underpinned the strategic necessity for the Vietnam war turned out to be incorrect. Vietnam fell and all of Southeast Asia, and shortly thereafter the world, did not fall under the grip of Communism. And, those in power that clung blindly to the belief that we could not afford to show any weakness protracted the conflict at great cost.
In short, I don't think countries have honor. People do. Soldiers do. But, countries only have interests. And it is the firm commitment to the maintenance of abstractions such as "national honor" that leads to hubristic over-reaching, especially in the area of military affairs.
Thus, fast forward to our case in Iraq. I am most concerned that we get as many of our soldiers out alive as possible and that we leave the place in as peaceable a state as possible given the severe trauma that society has experienced both before and after our invasion. And, I don't much care (rhetorically speaking, of course) whether we do it by honorable or dishonorable means.
It is the ends (and lives it takes to reach them) that we should be worried about.
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2 comments:
I'm kinda waiting, and hoping for the book "How I Sold My Soul to the Crazy Wing of the Republican Party and Lost", I think that would do wonders for McCain's perceived "honor". It does surprise me that he is still touting the praise for Palin. Seems like it's time to let that go and return to the McCain that people admired.
My, my, Gingerman... You're sounding a lot like Machiavelli here--that is, not the boogeyman Machiavelli but Machiavelli himself, who passionately desired the peace and stability of the state of Florence.
From The Prince: "The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous. Therefore if a prince wants to maintain his rule he must be prepared not to be virtuous, and to make use of this or not according to need. [...] You must realize this: that a prince, and especially a new prince, cannot observe all those things which give men a reputation for virtue, because in order to maintain his state he is often forced to act in defiance of good faith, of charity, of kindness, of religion."
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