Honor duty, Trump and McCain
If there is a purpose to President Donald Trump and Sen. John McCain existing in the same universe at the same time and in the same country and even as members of the same political party, it is surely to force Americans to grapple with their understanding of integrity and leadership. On the day McCain was giving a memorable speech in Philadelphia condemning “half-baked, spurious nationalism,” the sitting billionaire president was in the Rose Garden falsely accusing former President Barack Obama and his predecessors of not calling the families of fallen soldiers.
It didn’t take the factcheckers long to prove the president wrong. There are enough televised examples of other presidents joining families as the bodies of deceased serviced members returned to Dover Air Force Base or receiving Gold Star families in the White House to disprove Trump almost instantly ( and that doesn’t even count those families called on the phone).
The White House quickly shifted ground as well, with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claiming “The president wasn’t criticizing predecessors, but stating a fact.” And what “fact” was that? Apparently, that “sometimes they ( presidents) call, sometimes they send a letter, other times they have the opportunity to meet family members in person.”
Of course, President Trump wasn’t making the point that there are various ways to console grieving families; he was trying to say his phone calls are a leap beyond what others had done in the past, presumably letters written by staff. He had been embarrassed by the fact that he had not yet contacted by any means the families of four U. S. special forces members killed nearly two weeks ago in Niger. The president did what he always does when criticized; he lashed out. In the Trumpverse, all are lesser, all are expendable, all pale compared to him.
McCain had more important matters on his mind. At his award presentation, he expressed worry about U.S. foreign policy, the Trump administration’s failure to assert U. S. leadership, its abandonment of U.S. ideals formerly advanced around the globe, its preference to engage in scapegoating rather than problem- solving. “We have a moral obligation to continue in our just cause, and we would bring more than shame on ourselves if we don’t,” he said. “We will not thrive in a world where our leadership and ideals are absent. We wouldn’t deserve to.”
The former Vietnam POW, the son of a fourstar admiral, graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, survivor of torture and now battler of brain cancer is surely the closest Congress has to a hero living in its midst. Whether he is standing up to his party’s insane push to deny health care to millions of Americans or pointing out the simple truth that we are a “land of ideals, not of blood and soil,” McCain deserves the nation’s respect. As if to make the point even clearer, Trump told a D.C. radio station Tuesday that he may yet take his revenge on the senator for daring to criticize him “and it won’t be pretty.” McCain’s response? “I have faced tougher adversaries.”