I can see that I'm dealing with a collection of stanch heroes whose daily mission is to right all the wrongs history has dealt us via the embodiment of John McCain. Flawless and unbesmirched, they enjoy the moral high ground; entitling them the enviable right to piss on the reputations of all those lesser men, such as John McCain.
I can't assail their right to be so infallibly critical.
But I have a few questions.
Did they serve with or without honor as POW's in North Vietnam?
Have they spent a day as a Senatorial incumbent?
Were they blessed or damned to be a Naval Combat Aviator, also the Son of a High Admiral?
I don't really see any evidence that any of these detractors have walked even a single step in JM's Moccasins.
But they all surely know his motivations and the most private stirrings of his heart.
I am impressed.
There will always be such as these, who talk the talk.
Walk the walk? Maybe.
I've spent over ten years in cancer treatment and followup. I have also incurred a significant heart condition that confines me to the house on days when the temps go over 90, all of these conditions as a direct consequence of my service. I didn't get to play touchy-feely with the NVA POW Guards up close, but I did get to see North Vietnam just about 20 miles up the coast from my duty station at Qua Viet.
I don't sleep great at night. It's the PTSD, but it's in good hands with the VA.
Of course, I didn't have to deal with five years of hostile interrogations and vicious disciplinary beatings. I didn't have to act in puppet plays in order to spare my fellow prisoners from insane and certain brutality. So maybe I might have a few more peculiarities that others jump on and make their bones over. If I had, I might be in some at least minor admiration of those who were forced to do so..
Does any of this give me the right to impugn JM's character?
Me, I don't think so, but go ahead, be the big men, do the sure thing. Get your mileage, get all you can out of it.
Now he's got a pretty serious medical diagnosis; and the same infallible critics have a new bone in their teeth. More power to them, they haven't missed step in their mission to bring him even further down.
Would that I had such friends as these.
A small point of note.
The Senate is a vicious place. You get there by tossing your hat into the ring and facing the jeers, time after time, like John McCain has been doing for the three decades since he assumed his seat in 1987. He has faced down Liberal hacks in a whole lot more than one election.
How many of his detractors can match that performance? Here, in Arizona, none.
But let's just imagine he lost that last one. Would any of us here be happily welcoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer into our midst? Be happy with what we have, and not so much about what might have been.
Even so, some of us here are never happy. Only the rightest of the right, the truest of the true, the fairest of the fair will do. Just like themselves.
I am proud to share this forum with such wonderful folks. I guess it's my turn in the crosshairs now.
Break time.
Greg