Opus 2018-202: History Will Judge

I have not been paying much attention to the funeral and orations concerning John McCain.  I have been to enough funerals and participated an too many.  I know how much hot air is projected at such events.  They are almost as bad as some of the award assemblies I had to attend while teaching public school.  It is a good thing that God does not usually throw lightening bolts to sear liars.  He will wait until eternity where he has a lake of fire waiting.

You have mixed stories and wonder which to believe.  You have fellow prisoners claiming that he was noble and courageous.  You have others saying he ratted them out to the guards.  Hero or traitor?  Which is true?  Maybe both.  It could be that different cell mates saw different things at different times.  It is possible that actions were misinterpreted, positive and negative.  He could have been strong at one point and broken at another.  Maybe neither.  Memories get clouded and motives can be varied.  We will never really know.

Maybe we should divide McCain’s legacy into three stages.  The first was his time of captivity in a Vietnamese prison.  We will never be able to dig into that so maybe we should just give him the benefit of the doubt and let the legends stand.

The second stage would be the middle point in his career as senator.  My wife, who almost spits at the mention of his name, says he was at least consistent with his defense of the unborn children being killed in abortions.  That is worth something.  I am willing to say that during that time period he was a normal politician and has a mixed record. 

The third stage is the one that clouds his memory for me.  It is a strong indicator of his later record that he was so loved by the anti-American hacks in the media.  Is in an indication of his seduction by the dark side that so many socialist Democrats were his buddies.  In the last ten years you find him constantly stabbing the conservative agenda in the back.  He became petty and self serving.  He made it an issue of banning President Trump from his funeral.  I don’t think he thought about the fact that Trump would have hated every moment and would have had less time to tweet if courtesy demanded his attendance.  Less widely broadcast is that he also banned Sarah Palin.  This is mysterious as well as petty.  I have read that Sarah Palin never said a bad word about him even though his people tried to make her look like a fool while she was running as his vice-presidential nominee.  She acted like a lady.  He acted like a cad.

If John McCain had finished the third chapter like he lived the first two I might feel like his death brought a loss to the country.  As it is I can only feel it is a negative influence that has been removed.  The frustrating thing about history is that it is not really written until we have all passed from the scene.  Take a look at your history.  Benedict Arnold was an American hero early in the Revolutionary War.  He was the leader that won the battle of Saratoga that brought the French into the war.  But something changed and instead of being remembered as a hero his name has become synonymous with betrayal.  He is our name for traitor.  The later actions of betrayal eclipsed the early gallant service.

homo unius libri