John McCain

My friend Suz sent me the New York Times article about a questionable relationship between John McCain and a female lobbyist eight years ago. I don't really think it's important and I don't especially care about any sexuality associated with it. Whether or not there was impropriety involved in the lobbying part of it, I think that is an important question to answer. I also think it would be extremely hard to distinguish between friendships, business, and the ethics of it all. I know that I tend to cut my friends breaks when they do things I would find questionable in others.

In reading the article I was reminded that John McCain was one of the Keating Five. To his credit, McCain did learn from his mistake and he aggressively tried to rectify himself and the actions that got him into that pickle by his stance and work on campaign finance reform. That was the man I respected; the man who not only learned from his mistakes, but recognized their importance and recognized that that was not the man he wanted to be. McCain was also a hero, in my eyes, for his endurance of torture and degradation in a POW camp in Viet Nam and his later forgiveness. He was a man I could see myself voting for, which is remarkable since he is a republican and I am, quite frankly, staunchly liberal in most things.

I was heart broken when John McCain sold his soul for the Republican nomination for president. I can find no other way to describe his unbending support of George Bush in the past four years. I do not believe a man of past integrity could support someone so obviously deluded in his thinking and someone who has done so much direct harm to our country and its people. Not only that, he is supporting the man who directly questioned his patriotism. Perhaps I am too rigid in my ideas about right and wrong and perhaps I am too unforgiving, but there are some offenses I don't see people coming back from, and this is one of those offenses. To question the patriotism of someone who gave so much to their country is unbelievably filthy and cheap. I am ashamed of John McCain for accepting anyone who did so into his ideology.

It is always sad when a hero falls. I find this one especially sad because he was in a position to do so much good. I realize that politics is for the politicians, but I still hold out hope that there will be someone who puts the people of this country above their self aggrandized hopes. McCain could have been that man. He had it in him. Where did it go?

What have you done Mr. McCain? Joltin' George has helped you go astray.

I'm listening to something incredibly appropriate.