Old School
by digby
I’m not eulogizing John McCain because I have complicated feelings about him and I don’t think it’s necessary to air them during a period of mourning. I try to stay away from doing that when any politician dies because I always have complicated feelings about them. It’s just my own personal rule.
However, I do want to make one observation about McCain because he reminded me a lot of my father and other men of his age and I realized that although McCain is of a slightly younger cohort (born in 1936) he is the very last of the Greatest Generation politicians still serving. They have been venerated as cookie cutter heroes by their kids in the baby boom and now the Millennials, but in truth they were a complex lot, full of all the contradictions McCain exhibited as a politician.
Nonetheless,their view of America’s role in the world as a purveyor of ideals rather than strict ethnic tribalism (which it only lives up to in disappointing fits and starts) was a powerful one that helped shape the post war world into a more democratic place for millions of people. Perhaps it was all a pose. Certainly the white, conservative McCain faction in this country had no trouble telling people for decades they should “love it or leave it”, willfully misunderstanding the most fundamental of American freedoms. Still, it was better to at least pretend to have those ideals than to be openly self-serving and cynical as that faction is today.
As I said, my feelings about this are complicated, and probably more so these days as I undoubtedly succumb to a certain nostalgia as people are prone to do when they get older.
In any case, here’s McCain’s farewell letter to America. It made me tear up a little bit, maybe just because this man recognized that we are in a serious situation and used his final words to remind us that there is still resilience in this polity. I’m a sentimental fool sometimes:
“My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for sixty years, and especially my fellow Arizonans,
“Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country honorably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them.
“I have often observed that I am the luckiest person on earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of my life. I have loved my life, all of it. I have had experiences, adventures and friendships enough for ten satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good or bad times, for the best day of anyone else’s.
“I owe that satisfaction to the love of my family. No man ever had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of than I am of mine. And I owe it to America. To be connected to America’s causes – liberty, equal justice, respect for the dignity of all people – brings happiness more sublime than life’s fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.
“‘Fellow Americans’ – that association has meant more to me than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have acquired great wealth and power in the process.
“We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.
“We are three-hundred-and-twenty-five million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before. We always do.
“Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with the heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening.
“I feel it powerfully still.’
“Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.
“Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless America.”
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