McCarthyism and McCain

“We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men.”

Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, March 9, 1954

What is there about Presidential campaigns that presents such a severe challenge to a person’s character and his or her adherence to long-held principles? Is it the lust for power? Is it the spotlight of media attention and the fear of losing center stage? Is it the once-in-a-lifetime aspect of the process, with the candidate knowing that if he or she doesn’t get it right in the next few weeks the chance may never come again? Or, is it all of the above and/or some combination of other factors I am unable to fathom?

Whatever I may have thought about John McCain over the years, I have always known him to be a man of honor and principle. Not only is he a man of honor and principle, he has demonstrated his willingness to uphold his honor and principles under the most dire of circumstances. He was tested in this regard during the Vietnam War in ways the rest of us can only shudder over and never fully comprehend, and he emerged with his honor, principles and character intact.

However, as I have watched and listened to him over the past few months – and especially in these past few days – I have reluctantly concluded that when it comes to the presidency, his adherence to honor and principles are decidedly secondary to his imperative need to get elected. How can he stay the course under torture only to lose his way in the election spotlight? Can it possibly be that he has so many special interests pleading with him to do what it takes to get elected that the sound of their voices has overcome the sound of his inner voice? Has he forgotten that they want him elected for their benefit, not his?

The specific matter that prompts this question is McCain’s latest attempt to question Barack Obama’s ties to Bill Ayers. This is not a new story – it has been around for quite some time and has been “investigated” by various journalists of all stripes who have generally concluded that it is all a lot of nonsense. So Obama knows Ayers. So what? Radicalism is not a communicable disease. Character traits and principles are not transmitted by a virus, they are learned at our mothers’ knees. I rather suspect that if the truth were known, John McCain has known a significant number of rascals in his time other than Kenneth Keating. Does this association make him one himself? I think not.

Until yesterday, McCain left this sort of trash talk to Sarah Palin, probably understanding that to engage in it was to dirty his image. But since his campaign seems to be running out of things to say in this election, he now appears to be seeking a spin on the issue that will allow him to talk about it without appearing to actually be in the mud. Opining that he didn’t care about a “washed-up former terrorist,” McCain stated that the real issue was this: “We need to know the full extent of the relationship because of whether Sen. Obama is telling the truth to the American people or not. That’s the question.”

The question of what the Ayers/Obama relationship might be, or might have been, has been asked and answered on more than one occasion, and McCain’s re-asking it at this time is little more than demagoguery. Obama has repeatedly said what the relationship was, and it is a stretch to even describe it by using the term “relationship.” McCain’s statement is of the same caliber as the infamous question: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” If your answer is “yes,” you are a self-acknowledged former wife beater; if you answer the question “no”, you are a self-acknowledged current wife beater. This is because the question has an unstated predicate – i.e., you are a wife beater – thereby leaving as the only uncertainty whether you are still at it or not. The only proper answer one can give to a question such as this is “Go straight to Hell. Don’t pass Go. Don’t collect $200.”

The unstated predicate behind McCain’s statement that the issue is whether Obama has told the truth about the Obama/Ayers “relationship” or not, is that there is more to the “relationship” than has been admitted and that McCain has hard information which suggests that the truth hasn’t been told. Well, if he knows what that information is, why doesn’t he simply give it to us? If he doesn’t have such information, he has no business suggesting by innuendo that he does. To hint and suggest indirectly that such information exists is the true essence of demagoguery. In case he has forgotten, the concepts of “demagoguery” and “honor” are wholly incompatible.

While McCain has seemingly been in the Senate forever, he apparently has not been in the Senate long enough to remember Senator Joe McCarthy, the 1950’s communist baiter who was later censured by the Senate for his behavior. McCarthy spent the better part of the 1950’s asserting that there was some specific number of communists in the U.S. State Department – variously, either 205, 57 or 81, with the number apparently dependent upon the time of day, the weather report, the tightness of his shorts or the state of his then-current level of inebriation. He was pressed by many to produce the written list he always maintained he possessed, but he never produced one for the simple reason that he never had one. “Innuendo” should have been his middle name.

John McCain knows that he doesn’t have a viable issue over the question of whether Barack Obama knowingly associated with Bill Ayers. Knowing that, he engages in the worst kind of sophistry to keep the issue alive, saying that while the “terrorist” doesn’t matter, Obama’s character does and asking whether Obama has told us everything – with the unstated suggestion (predicate) that Obama hasn’t yet done so and is, therefor, not to be trusted. This is not John McCain at his best, and it saddens me to see an honorable man reduced to such a level of desperation that he would abandon the same principles he consistently maintained under torture.

Incidentally, I have far less problem with Sarah Palin uttering this garbage. Yes, it is still garbage when she utters it, it still shouldn’t be seen or heard in the limpid light of day, it still fails the smell test, and, no, I don’t think she should utter it in the first place. But, when she utters it, I unfortunately think we are seeing her at her best. She shares a fundamental problem with George Bush. As I stated yesterday, he is not of Presidential caliber. Simply put, neither is Ms. Palin. In fact, I suspect I could well compare George Bush favorably to her, and, given my opinions about Mr. Bush, I will leave you to conclude where I might place her in the character continuum.

Whatever quandaries I may find myself in over the issue of honor and character vs. the lure of Presidential politics, those of us who participate in this process as voters need to remember the words of Edward R. Murrow quoted above. He spoke these words on his first national television broadcast about Senator Joseph McCarthy. He eloquently reminds us that “accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.”

It is only a blind follower of his or her political party that might possibly conclude there is some value to repeating this kind of trash. As voters, none of us should be fooled by it. As voters, all of us should insist that politicians immediately produce what proof they have of the truth of statements like this one, so that such proof can be timely analyzed by independent means. As voters, we ought to remember that we aren’t in a position to know the hard facts and that we are dependent upon independent verification or disproof. As voters, we ought to tell the politicians to shut up if they cannot produce hard proof. And, since the politicians don’t listen to us while the electoral lust is upon them, we have to send this message in the only way the process allows – in the silence and privacy of the voting booth.

The role of the media in repeating all of this ad nauseam is a matter for further reflection on another day. Suffice it to say here that while their hands are equally unclean, I am not as surprised by the media’s behavior in the way that I am amazed by McCain’s. More on this subject at another time.

Near the end of his career during the Army/McCarthy hearings, Joe McCarthy was famously put down by the Army’s counsel, Joseph Welch, when Welch said to McCarthy in front of television cameras broadcasting to some 20,000,000 watching Americans: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” While John McCain does not, as yet, deserve that kind of put down, the political smear tactics of Karl Rove and his ilk (from which the McCain suggestion directly derives) certainly do.

It is time for John McCain to remember who he is and to listen to his internal voice, no matter the volume or cacophony of his advisers’ voices. The John McCain I thought I knew would not stoop so low. Where is he? I hope he will come out and play, since it would make the election far more interesting and far more deserving of his participation.

About Gavin Stevens

Humptulips County is the wholly fictional on-line residence of Stephen Ellis, a would-be writer, an avid fan of William Faulkner and his Yoknapatawpha County, and a retired lawyer.
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