Final Tribute/Eulogy - RIP to John McCain's integrity [View All]

[Mira]

Eulogy for John McCain's lost integrity
By LEONARD PITTS JR.
[e-mail]

We are gathered here today to pay our final respects to John McCain's integrity.
It died recently -- turned a triple somersault, stiffened like an exclamation point, fell to the floor with its tongue hanging out -- when the senator told Newsweek magazine, "I never considered myself a maverick." This, after the hard fought presidential campaign of 2008 in which McCain, his advertising team, his surrogates and his running mate all but tattooed the ‘‘M'' word on their foreheads.
Indeed, not only did they call McCain a maverick, but so did the subtitle of his 2003 memoir. Heck, his campaign plane when he ran for president back in 1999 was dubbed Maverick One. Yet there he is in the April 12, 2010, edition of Newsweek, page 29, top of the center column: "I never considered myself a maverick."

And his integrity kicked twice and was still.

<snip>

Two things here: One, all the nattering about flip-flops aside, there is nothing wrong with changing one's opinion. It indicates a thinking mind.
Two, McCain is hardly unique. Indeed, they have a name for people who change their opinions in order to win votes: politicians.
But these are not just changes of opinion we're talking about. Rather, they are betrayals of core principle. And while that might be politics as usual, there is a higher standard for the politician who has positioned himself as a man of uncommon integrity, a purveyor of straight talk in a nation hungry for same. When that man panders, the disappointment is keen.

<snip>

One is reminded of that poignant scene in The Truman Show where Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank has just discovered his entire life was a made-for-TV fiction. ``Was nothing real?'' he asks. A voter who believed in John McCain, who regarded his iconoclastic singularity as a stirring example, might be forgiven for asking the very same thing.
``I never considered myself a maverick?!'' Wow.
With those words, McCain completes his transmutation into an avatar of all that is wrong in American politics.
May his integrity rest in peace.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/17/1583982/eulogy-for-john-mccains-lost-integrity.html#ixzz0lprcEzSC


If you have made it this far, let me throw in a video of Jon Stewart's magnificent and hysterically correct recent take on the subject

Video: Jon Stewart, Maverick John McCain neutered, sells soul to keep his job

The isle crossing maverick from Arizona has become a shell of a man who now basks in the shadow of our national embarrassment, The Alaskan Chillbilly. On stage with Sarah Palin he stands in the background looking around like old uncle Billy wondering where the sound is coming from and if the cafeteria will be serving mashed carrots tonight. It is very sad.

http://rackjite.com/archives/4827-Video-Jon-Stewart,-Maverick-John-McCain-neutered,-sells-soul-to-keep-his-job.html