The Cross in the Dirt
For the record, I believe John McCain. That’s hardly surprising. I also think that just as Hillary Clinton was reluctant to describe her Methodist faith, John McCain has been reluctant to describe his religious experiences — he seems to have quirky religious views which aren’t always easy for him, or anyone else, to define. This famous reluctance ebbed later in his career, in part out of a recognition that it reflected an older sensibility, one that was no longer in tune with the electorate. So, starting in the run-up to his first presidential campaign, he began to speak more frankly and forthrightly about his Christianity.
Is this that strange?
But leaving that aside, I caution the Obamaphiles who are trying to make an issue out of this — who are making the unprovable claim that McCain simply made this story up out of whole cloth.
Making this a story does not help Barack Obama. Making this a story — forcing the McCain campaign to constantly emphasize his religious experience, his captivity, the decency of at least one of his Vietnamese captors — does not make John McCain look dishonest or cynical. It connects him with a constituency that hasn’t always connected with him on a visceral level.
Of course, I’m sure this isn’t being raised for merely tactical reasons. It is being raised because some see it as a legitimate issue. And that’s fair enough. It happens to be a conversation that objectively helps McCain as it makes those behind the accusation seem unkind, at the least.
So if I were the McCain camp, I’d say, “Please, please continue. And MoveOn? Please, cut an advertisement on this subject. We want to hear about this more.”
During the primary campaign, the Obama campaign was careful not to discuss low-level vandalism by political opponents, including racist graffiti, etc. They knew that talking about the attacks would change the narrative in a way that was unfavorable to the campaign, that would make Obama look like a victim.
But sometimes looking like a victim is a good thing, i.e., when you are a devout Christian under siege by critics who accuse you on lying about Christian decency under uniquely painful, trying circumstances. Just a thought.
Well, Tom Maguire actually adressed the thing sort of well, and I think he punctured your idea above (which kind of buys into some of Sullivan’s nonsense) that McCain started talking about faith-relevant instances and his captivity as a piece of his presidential run.
The whole thing is screwy, and it’s amazing how certain things can turn the often witty, erudite, pensive Sullivan into a slobbering nutcase. Personally I’d imagine McCain’s experiences are basically full of emotionally powerful stories — many more of them than will really get a telling. Every now and then he fishes back and thinks of one, and tries it out, and if it gets a real reception, or if in the retelling he finds something in it himself, then it stays on rotation for a while. The “cross in the dirt” appears to be one of those. Big deal.
I agree though that this story only helps McCain — a lot — and I think the substance of the story is more or less irrelevant to most people’s votes anyway.
— Sanjay · Aug 19, 03:27 PM · #
So basically the claim is that given a billion people enslaved by Communism, and given that some of them belong to a religion that tells of ancient stories of people making signs in the dirt to recognize each other, there nonetheless couldn’t possibly be two such people in the world who would think of making a sign in the dirt independently. One of them had to have stolen the story from the other one.
— Stuart Buck · Aug 19, 04:04 PM · #
Heh-he. My last paragraph up there is written terribly ignorantly. I meant (and mean) that the substance of McCain’s cross story is not tremedously important electorally, until the nuts currently attacking its veracity come along and help him a lot with their narrative.
— Sanjay · Aug 19, 04:29 PM · #
I was saying the same think about John Kerry’s service in 2004. Whoops! But ultimately you are probably right as the Left doesn’t have the stomach to go after a war hero. The right, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have much in the way of standards.
— KJ · Aug 19, 05:07 PM · #
this is a bit of a dangerous game. By raising this as an issue rather than just accepting it, Obama’s supporters risk making it look to the casual observer as though they are persecuting McCain because of his faith. Since they can’t prove he’s lying (for the record, I have no reason to think he is), it’s likely to end up backfiring, in my opinion. But I’ve been wrong before.
— hugo · Aug 19, 11:59 PM · #