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blue bits. red rocks.
Thursday 30 October 2008

The problem for McCain is that his career - and in particular his strained relations with the Bush camp — does not offer a coherent, consistent message for a candidacy. Here is a man whose prevailing legacy is that he was a tortured American POW. And yet, in fear of losing the party base, he was forced to engage from day one in a slippery political dance on the most sensitive issue of his life, going some distance to apply the principles of his experience, yet not so far that he might be perceived as critical of the President. Thus, instead of becoming a vital reminder of how America can cannibalize her young people in a misbegotten war, McCain let his ambition for the White house ally him with an Administration on the wrong side of history, condoning the morally shameful enterprise they engineered in Iraq. By doing this, instead of helping America avoid repeating history, he became one willing to block out even his own memories and pretend, as he did in his speech about 2013, that there can ever be “victory with honor” in a war like that in Iraq. Deep down, McCain must know that after giving themselves to a war of lies, cynicism, and corruption, young people return home with less than they started out with. But instead of representing this wisdom and sparing another generation of young Americans the anguish he experienced, McCain sold them out in order that he might win the chance to occupy that same office from which he was once misguidedly commanded into harm’s way. Eugene Jarecki

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