2 Crosses in the Dirt
This post is about the interviews between Rick Warren and John McCain at Warren’s church Saturday night. The title is about a question that I don’t even feel very comfortable raising. I only comment on this because I had a similar vibe as the author of this diary. In fact, I did some googling earlier today, trying to find other stories similar to the one John McCain gave at the Saddlecreek Forum Saturday night (and apparently has shared at least once or twice before). I didn’t find anything at that time: apparently my google search was too narrowly tailored to bring up the parallel story from Solzhenitsyn. But, my spider-sense had gone off: not just that maybe I heard the story before (as it turns out, from having read the Gulag Archipelago in High School) - but from the feeling that this story verged on being just a little bit too romantic. I scratched my head and wondered to myself why this guard would have singled out John McCain for this favor and for a signal of Christian fraternity.
I have to stress that I do not think that the parallels between McCain’s account and that of Solzhenitsyn prove that McCain made his story up. There are parallels, but there is no word-for-word plagiarism, and the stories do not overlap in their details. It is the kind of thing that could happen twice, to two different POWs during the same era. It would be wrong to assume McCain is a liar because of this. On the one hand, taken together with McCain’s record of having lifted portions of his Georgia policy speech from Wikipedia, a circumstantial case can be made that McCain lifted this story from someone else’s experience, but on the other hand it is dangerous to accuse someone of a lie based on a purely circumstantial case. Furthermore, it is politically dangerous to do it when dealing with someone’s POW stories. But my curiosity is piqued.
If nothing else, I know that I’ll be paying close attention to his anecdotes in the future.
That said, McCain won last night handily on style and on appeal to his base and to wavering middle-of-the-roaders.
He lost on logic, reason, and perspective:
He believes firmly that human rights should be conferred on the zygote at conception. Yet, he does not wish to outlaw destructive embryonic stem cell research (or fertility treatments that require destruction of fertilized embryos, for that matter).
He believes firmly, without hesitation, that evil exists and that our only response to it is to “defeat it”. Yet he says you cannot draw a firm line saying when it is appropriate for us to commit American lives to the purpose.
These were his most glaring contradictions, but of course many of his positions (especially the thought that “rich” means making $5 million per year, the notion that Georgia is an innocent victim of Russian aggression) represented poor thinking on his part. But don’t expect anyone to notice that, because he was “resolute” and “quick thinking” and “America-loving” and all of those other things that go with being perceived as a good leader, regardless of what direction the leading is done toward.
A side note about the evening - apparently, the advertized debate format was not adhered to, opening up another uncomfortable question about how McCain seemed to be so well prepared for Pastor Warren’s questions. And, again, we are confronted with a circumstantial case. It is a shame that the format was not carried out as promised. I’m trying to figure out who’s to blame for that.
Apart from these irregularities and my earlier comments about McCain’s flawed positions, I do appreciate Rick Warren and his church opening their doors and their minds to a discussion like this. I disagree with Warren about just about everything, but it seems his heart is in the right place. He may well represent a new hope for a Christian evangelicalism that is not permanently enslaved to divisive politics.
I think that makes the count “every single time” that a debate between a Republican and a Democrat has resulted in the GOPer being the snake oil salesman and the Democrat being the intellectual that is too darn smart for the rubes. Go figure.
Really? You didn’t get that joke? Even though he pointed out that the comment would be taken out of context, you still took it as a straightforward answer?
-
Personally, I thought Obama’s admission that he’s not sure when life begins - but go ahead and terminate it at your leisure since it’s above his pay grade - was the hit of the night.
The only question is WHEN, not if, he starts softening his stance on that issue.