Not Comforting
Mr McCain had been taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese when his plane was shot down. He returned to his country a hero. He had been crippled by the crash, he had been tortured by his captors and yet, when offered early release to serve Vietnamese propaganda purposes, he had refused. How could he ever forgive a man like [David] Ifshin?
And yet he did. The young radical Democrat never repented of his opposition to the Vietnam War, but he came to regret his broadcast bitterly. He came to understand his country’s big heart, its generosity. And so one day, at a Washington event, Ifshin approached Mr McCain and asked to be allowed to apologise. Mr McCain decided to let him. And extraordinarily the two became friends, campaigners together for human rights in Vietnam. Said the senator: “I realised he had not been my enemy, but my countryman.” He added: “His friendship honoured me.”
A friend of mine was with John McCain when Ifshin’s wife rang to say that he had died. The senator spoke to her, then told his office to hold any further calls. For an hour he sat and reminisced about the lives that he and the young radical had lived, and how their different paths had finally come together. And my friend realised that here was the key to Mr McCain’s appeal. Not just his humanity, but his ability, alone among his contemporaries, to heal the wounds of the 1960s. If he is going to win the presidency, it is upon this ability that he will rely.
So, basically, what this means is that this election will be about 60s after all. Again. For. the. Upteenth. Time.
Time moves on. As the conservative author David Frum never tires of pointing out, there is a limit to the number of elections that conservatives can win fighting the memory of hippy leaders and 1968 rioters on the streets of Chicago. Nixon’s coalition is growing old and dying. Mr McCain needs to create a new one. He has to decide if he wants to.
sigh
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