McCain Must Renew Hero Status in Last Debate

McCain Must Renew Hero Status Tonight in Debate 

By C. Edmund Wright

With the challenges now  facing the United States at home and abroad, it is likely that the next President will either emerge as a hero or a disaster. Timing dictates that the notion of a nice polite boring Eisenhower type administration is not in the offing.  Of course, we know an Obama administration with the Democrats in control of congress will be an umitigated disaster. The question is, will the war hero candidate find the resolve in the nick of time to save the nation from such a situation.

Consider: John McCain is attempting to ride the stature of being a torture tested war hero  into the White House.  We are told that McCain withstood communists soldiers armed with guns, knives, clubs and all manner of other sinister devices, yet held firm for the honor of his country and his POW buddies. His bravery was remarkable, and yet all that really stood in the balance was a PR opportunity for North Viet Nam related to a tiny chapter in a regional conflict. That war had little chance of affecting "main street" USA.

Unlike Eisenhower, McCain was hardly the central planning figure in what has been called the most important day in World history.  The point is simply this: Eisenhower's ability to make some of the most important decisions known to man in the mid 1940's was a compelling qualifier in the 1952 Presidential election. His decisions were so momentus and so recent that he really needed nothing else to unabashedly ask for the nation's vote at that time.  You might say his hero status had not reached its expiration date. It was full strength.

McCain's hero status - as a politically viable element --  has expired. This is not any indication of disrespect. But like a powerful drug whose time has passed, an expiration  means the substance is likely not strong enough to accomplish the assigned task. McCain's hero status was earned too long ago and he has wilted in the face of too many recent opportunties for us to continue to believe in the strength of this elixir as a way to keep Obama out of the White House.

He is in a political war right now where the stakes are infinitely higher than anything he was involved with at the Hanoi Hilton. An Obama Presidency is much more dangerous to the world than some Admiral's son being used as a pawn for communist propoganda.  If we are to believe that somewhere in this man still lies the ability to stand up for his country in the face of communist guards armed to the teeth, then it is within our right to demand that he stand up to a socialist junior senator armed with Keith Olberman, Anderson Cooper and the Daily Kos.

If the reputation of a handful of fellow soldiers is worth a lifetime of bodily pain to McCain, then why isn't this country's greatness worth risking some notion of his  bi-partisan legacy? If McCain cannot answer these questions - and tonight's debate marks the last great opportunity to do so - then he will not win the White House. He will also leave legitimate lingering questions about the current viability of his hero status.

In an interesting analogy, McCain was oft compared to Bob Dole of 1996 during this  year's primary season. That year Dole, like McCain, was widely considered "the most electable" Republican by the out of touch pundit class. Both men sort of won their nominations by attrition.  An injured war veteran,  Dole fought a strangely non aggressive campaign for someone so accustomed to battle.  He lost to a Lewinsky-weakened Clinton by an embarrassing margin and took some congessional seats down with him. In the richest of ironies, Dole's polite passionless loss led to a spokesperson contract for Viagra.

So now we can compare two long time aging senators, carryng heavy scars of war, fighting two similarly unheroic campaigns. Indeed, at this juncture, McCain does look just as "electable as Dole." That's precisely the problem.

Which is why it is incumbent on us, as Americans who did not and perhaps could not handle what McCain handled in Viet Nam, to demand he update his hero status.   After all, it was his idea to run for President and his idea that the Hanoi Hilton be central to his qualifications. Most of us did not want him to run and we never thought his hero thing would close the deal in November.  And we don't think "reaching across the aisle" is courageous either.  Many people who will vote for McCain agree with Camille Paglia - who will not vote for McCain -- that it is time "to build him a statue and turn the damned page" on the whole Viet Nam thing.

Now turning the page in Paglia's mind means canning the talk about his war wounds, losing to Obama and riding off into memior land. To us, it means renewal of his hero status. It means he must fight for us now as he has asked us to do for him. It means looking Obama (also known as "that one") in the face and unabashedly connecting the dots between him, ACORN, the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie, Freddie,  enviromental extremists and our stumbling economy. It means tying this former community organizer to the likes of Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Reverend Phlager and all of the other blatantly anti-American mentors and supporters he has had and selling the notion that perhaps all of these failed policies did not happen by coincidence. It is time for Obama's chickens to "come home to roost" and McCain is the only one who can call them in. No less than the future of this nation as the free experiment in governance it has been is at stake.

Obama has recoiled at some of McCain's television ads and stump speeches that have touched on the issues above and bragged that McCain "won't say that to my face." While that is hardly a refutation of the facts, until McCain does say it to Obama's face, the Illinois Senator is somewhat innoculated. Tonight, my friends, is McCain's last best chance to say it to the arrogant yet unaccomplished politician's face. He must do it. He owes it to himself. He owes it to us. He owes it to his country. If he fails, his legacy will be a blown opportunity, not Hanoi heroics.

And since most of us are far younger than 72, we will live with the results far longer than he will have to. And that's our ticket to make the demand that McCain renew his hero status with yet another test.