The Moderate Voice: McCain Defends Obama: A Split With Sarah Palin?
So is it another about face that means a shift (or re-shift) or is it a perfunctory, lip service bow to the “old John McCain?”
Arizona Senator John McCain, a politician who seemed to be working hard to shed his old persona, reverted to his old persona in an Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post where he praised Barack Obama’s Tucson shooting speech, defended Obama’s patriotism and even suggested some regret for some of his own past statements. Does this signal a split with his former running mate Sarah Palin, who is now the embodiment of the country’s polarizing talk radio political culture (she is also literally a favorite of Glenn Beck’s and Rush Limbaugh)?
The jury is still out on that but McCain’s op-ed is getting a lot of attention. Here are some chunks of it:
President Obama gave a terrific speech Wednesday night. He movingly mourned and honored the victims of Saturday’s senseless atrocity outside Tucson, comforted and inspired the country, and encouraged those of us who have the privilege of serving America. He encouraged every American who participates in our political debates – whether we are on the left or right or in the media – to aspire to a more generous appreciation of one another and a more modest one of ourselves.
The president appropriately disputed the injurious suggestion that some participants in our political debates were responsible for a depraved man’s inhumanity. He asked us all to conduct ourselves in those debates in a manner that would not disillusion an innocent child’s hopeful patriotism. I agree wholeheartedly with these sentiments. We should respect the sincerity of the convictions that enliven our debates but also the mutual purpose that we and all preceding generations of Americans serve: a better country; stronger, more prosperous and just than the one we inherited.
Further down is where he defends Obama and also GOPers who oppose him on policy grounds:
I disagree with many of the president’s policies, but I believe he is a patriot sincerely intent on using his time in office to advance our country’s cause. I reject accusations that his policies and beliefs make him unworthy to lead America or opposed to its founding ideals. And I reject accusations that Americans who vigorously oppose his policies are less intelligent, compassionate or just than those who support them.
And here is where he suggests some — including himself — might consider lowing the tone on political discussion:
Our political discourse should be more civil than it currently is, and we all, myself included, bear some responsibility for it not being so. It probably asks too much of human nature to expect any of us to be restrained at all times by persistent modesty and empathy from committing rhetorical excesses that exaggerate our differences and ignore our similarities. But I do not think it is beyond our ability and virtue to refrain from substituting character assassination for spirited and respectful debate.
And here — without naming her — he defends Palin who was not only blasted by many due to her cross-hairs web fiasco, but also for her speech that boomeranged, creating a controversy due to what some said was her self-absorbed content and use of the controversial phrase “blood libel.”
Political leaders are not and cannot reasonably be expected to be indifferent to the cruelest calumnies aimed at their character. Imagine how it must feel to have watched one week ago the incomprehensible massacre of innocents committed by someone who had lost some essential part of his humanity, to have shared in the heartache for its victims and in the admiration for those who acted heroically to save the lives of others – and to have heard in the coverage of that tragedy voices accusing you of complicity in it.
It does not ask too much of human nature to have the empathy to understand how wrong an injury that is or appreciate how strong a need someone would feel to defend him or herself against such a slur. Even to perceive it in the context of its supposed political effect and not as the claim of the human heart to the dignity we are enjoined by God and our founding ideals to respect in one another is unworthy of us, and our understanding of America’s meaning.
AND:
But it is not beyond us to do better; to behave more modestly and courteously and respectfully toward one another; to make progress toward the ideal that beckons all humanity: to treat one another as we would wish to be treated.
We are Americans and fellow human beings, and that shared distinction is so much more important than the disputes that invigorate our noisy, rough-and-tumble political culture. That is what I heard the president say on Wednesday evening. I commend and thank him for it.
This is closer to the John McCain of 2000 than the emerging image of the 2010- 2011 McCain who often seems to still be stung from losing the election to Obama, a politician with a lot less experience than McCain.
ABC’s John Berman sees the differences between McCain and Palin on Obama as indicative of how the GOP is now at a crossroads and needs to decide which path it’ll pursue:
Much has been written about turmoil and infighting during that campaign. But the conflict now has nothing to do with politics in 2008, and everything to do with the direction of the Republican Party in 2011. One says the president actively wants to help America, the other, actively hurt it.
In Sunday’s Washington Post, Sen. McCain wrote an Op-Ed lavishing praise on President Obama for his speech Wednesday night in Tucson. “President Obama gave a terrific speech Wednesday night,” the senator wrote, “[he] “comforted and inspired the country.”
And in notably gracious language, McCain added, “”I disagree with many of the president’s policies, but I believe he is a patriot sincerely intent on using his time in office to advance our country’s cause.”
Read that carefully. He called President Obama a “patriot” who wants to “advance our country’s cause.
Now contrast those words to language used by former Gov. Palin a little more than a week ago, when she said the President was, “Hell-bent on weakening America.”
That statement came during an interview on Laura Ingraham’s radio show that has drifted into that background a bit because of the discussion about the Arizona shootings, not to mention “cross-hairs’ and “blood libel.”
Palin used that notably strong language the day before the Arizona shootings in a discussion with Ingraham on raising the national debt ceiling, which she opposes, and the White House currently supports.
Palin told Ingraham that by supporting raising the debt ceiling, “what Obama is doing–purposefully weakening America.”
It could be that both the 2000 McCain and the 2010 will vanish in 2011 — with a new version somewhere in the middle.
AND:
Again, what is striking is the stark difference between what is being said by McCain and Palin. The senator says, whatever his disagreements with the president, he believes Obama is “intent on using his time in office to advance our country’s cause.” While Sarah Palin is clearly saying that she believes that the president is using his time in office to purposefully weaken America.
The striking difference in this language makes one wonder if McCain was directing his comments in the Washington Post Op-Ed at Palin’s rhetoric?
His Op-Ed does seem to defend Palin from the criticism that her rhetoric is any way to blame for the Arizona shootings. “Imagine,” he asks, what it must have been like, “to have heard in the coverage of that tragedy voices accusing you of complicity in it.”
While he is clearly admonishing those who criticized Palin on that front, he is hardly embracing the type of language she has been using recently in public. The question is, does their split on this issue represent what will be a schism in the Republican party going forward. And which argument is more compelling to voters…Republicans and otherwise.
I would bet that come 2012 most independent voters will be sick of the over the top demonizing rhetoric and that the Republican party will nominate someone who can offer more than just snark, Facebook postings, Twitters and carefully planned speeches because polls will show that person has a better chance of taking on incumbent Obama.
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