From: SendMeHack@aol.com Save Address Block Sender
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Subject: Personal From David Hackworth
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 18:44:31 EST
Folks this brilliant piece is not from SFTT nor VOTG, but
forwarded
privately by David Hackworth, as it captures exactly how I feel
about
McCain. My one exception with the piece, based on my extensive
research: I
don't believe McCain did his duty as a POW. He is the only
American
soldier to receive a Silver Star medal for treason which says
it all.
Hack
Reply to me at <teagles@hackworth.com>
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The Uses of Honor
By Mark Helprin 03/06/2000
The Wall Street Journal
If John McCain wins the Republican nomination, he will have
done so not by
persuading the Republican Party but by overcoming it with the
help of
outsiders and by feverishly endorsing the accusations of its
enemies. If he
loses, he will have provided the Democrats with what they will
hail as
proof that the GOP is an exclusionary, intolerant,
narrow-minded, ruthless
machine that would eat its own children rather than reform.
These are
betrayals,
plain and simple, and betrayals by any definition are acts that
are hard to
square with honor.
And yet he has asked to be judged by his honor, and his
countrymen have
responded not merely with respect but with love, love for an
American pilot
whose plane went down and who suffered long in captivity on our
behalf
and in our stead, who was defiant and principled even in the
face of death,
and
who, far beyond that, refused his freedom on a single point of
honor that no
one
living would have accused him of dishonoring had he not. What
he did is, as
it should be, part of American history. There are few better or
more moving
stories, anywhere, of courage, defiance, and discipline. He has
won the
hearts of the American people. How could he not have?
But God does not make perfect beings, and although -- and
perhaps because
-- Sen. McCain was once the font of enough honor and
self-discipline for 100
ordinary men, he has faltered.
It is not honorable to trade upon one's honor, to offer it as a
token, to
mention it in every other breath. This is self-evident.
It is not honorable for him to treat his rivals and opponents
as if they
were his captors. Are they? Were they? Is the world divided so,
into bands
of
angels following John McCain on his zigzag course as he decides
what
position to take on the spur of any moment, and demons mounting
in their
number
as he condemns and disdains one group after another? The GOP,
he says, "is
intent on breaking me." This is true only because he is intent
on breaking
it,
making the nomination struggle a bizarre combat between the
would-be
nominee and the party he seeks to represent. Of course, many
people fervently
agree that in a contest between Sen. McCain and the Republican
Party itself,
the
choice is clearly Sen. McCain: They are called Democrats.
It is not honorable to be magnetized always by causes that put
his own
party at a mortal disadvantage. Though quite right that the
admixture of
money
and politics makes for deep and fundamental corruption, his
cure, regulating
the flow of that money, is worse than the disease. The flow can
be regulated,
the argument goes, because money is not speech. Fine. Put the
New York Times,
the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the NEA, the AFL-CIO,
People for
the American Way, Emily's List, and the Sierra Club on budgets
of $2 million
per annum, and let's see if money is or is not speech.
Nor is it honorable for Sen. McCain to turn upon his own party
for the
imperfections he alleges, and cry out that its challenges can
be met not by
adherence to its essential principles but by backing down. The
Republicans
whom he condemns remember with exquisite clarity the decades in
which, for
holding fast to antiquated principles, they were accused of
being on the
wrong side of history. They remember that for their lack of
flexibility,
and, sometimes, electability (is honor about being elected, or
about being
right?), and their refusal to abandon their belief in the
sanctity of the
individual and of human life, in the limitation of bureaucracy,
in liberty,
and in government by the consent of the governed, they were
mocked and
reviled, especially just before the clouds broke and the light
showed that
their stubbornness had put them, in fact, on the right side of
history.
And they wonder how it is that a man who held steadfastly for
so long
against unbearable pressure is so eager now to throw over his
party, its
principles, and its partisans for the sin of unwillingness to
recast
themselves
according to what he himself admits are his sometimes
instantaneous and
improvised notions of reform.
Were he coherent enough actually to be seeking reform, his
actions would
have a different coloration. But he seems to want not the
reform of the
Republican Party as much as its overthrow. We know this because
you do not
reform the Republican Party by importing Democrats to vote in
its primaries.
You
do not reform the Republican Party by siding with the press
against it enough
times to win a Pulitzer Prize. You do not reform the Republican
Party by
packing it with independents and floaters who have no
compunction about
deciding
the fate of an organization to which they profess no
allegiance.
Sen. McCain depends for his margin of victory, when he achieves
it, upon
these floaters, a not-so-small and entirely fickle component of
American
politics. They are not exactly "the middle." They are those who
don't
know if they are Republicans or Democrats, or who are sometimes
Republicans
and sometimes Democrats, or who are repelled by both, but who,
after their
quests and affairs, return to vote in the political pastures
they make a
great
show of leaving. Fresh from their support of Ross Perot, Jesse
Ventura,
Oprah,
Pat Buchanan, Donald Trump, Ralph Nader, and Leo the Lion, they
are the
people
who are moved by dim and intermingling currents of charisma,
resentment,
and indignation, and the background music that swells in
commercials to evoke
the Kennedyesque.
Never satisfied, they do not understand that, in the nature of
things,
political parties are exasperating even to their adherents,
that politics
can be pure only in a dictatorship, and then only in the eye of
the
dictator.
Otherwise, it is a series of compromises and accommodations for
the sake of
being able to marshal transcendent unity when it is needed in a
crisis of
survival. After adolescence one should learn that although no
one is
entirely happy in his political home, things work out for the
best if you
dance with
the girl you came with. Not everyone does learn this, sometimes
not even
senators.
That is why, like Inspector Clouseau, John McCain ran so hard
through the
door that George W. Bush opened to the middle that he has to
look behind
him to see Al Gore. Perhaps if he keeps on at his torrid pace
he'll go around
the world and eventually get back to being a Republican, but
must half the
people of the United States wait upon his bayonet charges into
the distance?
His claim upon our hearts and our collective conscience is that
of a young
naval aviator whose character and exploits will live in
American history
forever. But this claim does not extend to his further
judgments, his
contemporaneous actions, or his ambitions. It is surprising and
disappointing that he has failed to understand his duty to his
party, which
is a
greater, more constant, and better thing than just John McCain,
even if he
does not
know it, because it takes its force and justification from the
real needs
and heartfelt aspirations of scores of millions of people.
For this failure, and thus for the greater good of the nation
he still
serves with
inimitable but reckless courage, this week he must be gently
voted down.#####
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++>> This is a personal message from David Hackworth and
has nothing to
do with Defending America newsletter nor Voice of The Grunt.
I know this transition period has been confusing ~ I'm one of
the (slightly)
confused ~ but, I can no longer unsub you from the newsletter
mailing list
because I don't keep it. There are instructions at the end of
each edition
for unsubbing. However, if you want to be taken out of Hack's
personal
contact list, send a message to <VoiceOfTheGrunt@aol.com> asking
to be
removed. Thank you so much for your friendship, time, and
patience. Judy
<<++
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