SHAMERICANS
With the end not even on the horizon, the presidential campaign continues to heat up, fueled wildly at the moment by the immigration reform legislation which has stalled, at least. As the discourse between parties and viewpoints unravels, it was only a matter of time before it reached carnivalesque heights. In my opinion, that line was crossed this week when, during a campaign stop, a group of protestors shouted the name "traitor" at Senator John McCain. I have made no secret of my admiration for McCain, in these columns, in conversation with friends, on the radio and indeed, to John McCain himself. While I feel that this legislation is weak in some areas, I do not feel it provides blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants already here. I do feel that any reform should provide first and foremost that border crossings be stopped first. Stopped. That's right, and we could do it if we really wanted to. Two things bother me about all the rancour and Monday-morning quarterbacking.
First, the unenviable position we find ourselves in, saturated with illegal immigrants, should come as no surprise to anyone. The problem has been rampant and virtually ignored for decades. Now we find ourselves with few, if any, tenable solutions, and probably no solutions that are going to please everyone. What drives me nuts is the hypocrisy of all the complainers. The fellow Senators and Congressmen who have done nothing during their tenure to address the problem and clearly, anything that has been done has been completely ineffective. So along comes the Kennedy/McCain Bill and all we hear is crying and stomping feet. One of the prevailing complaints being the expectation that the government will not enforce any of the new provisions anyway. If this notion, well-founded though it may be, is reason for dismissing any new legislation, then we may as well send all of our politicians on an early vacation. We have to try, and if nothing else, the mid-term elections sent a clear message that the people want effective leaders. We didn't get any yet, but it is known that we want them.
What really bothers me however, is to witness a bunch of "activists" calling John McCain a traitor. It is fine to disagree with him. It is fine to not like him. Yet, I know too much about this man to withstand him being called a traitor. People always mention his five plus years as a POW in Vietnam, but McCain's heroism began well before that. The famed conflagration on the USS Forrestal began when a bomb on McCain's jet caught fire as he sat in it, waiting to takeoff. The explosion caused a chain reaction as other aircraft began to explode, their armament and fuel igniting. There is film of McCain getting out of his plane and running out of the flames. He turns around and runs back into the fireball to drag out a comrade. They are both on fire. The other guy didn't make it. Over 130 men died that day on that carrrier. Military protocol allowed McCain and other Airmen on that carrier to be relieved of any further flying missions for the duration of their duty. McCain declined and requested transfer to another carrier. This would turn out to be an ominous decision, but the only one his honor would allow. He went on to fly 29 combat missions over Vietnam, finally being shot down over Hanoi when he intercepted a surface-to-air missile bound for another plane in his squadron. He ejected and landed in a small pond in downtown Hanoi, bones broken from the violent ejection.
After three years of torture and seeing many of his brothers die at the hands of their enemy, he was offered early release when his captors figured out that they were holding, and torturing, the son and grandson of Navy Admirals. Again, honor-bound, McCain declined to leave without his men, or to leave sooner than others who had been held longer. That decision cost him another two and a half years of abuse. Remember, too, that he was not famous then. The grim reality, in fact, was that none of them expected to survive their stay there. No one would ever know about his courage and honor, except him. I believe that is the very definition of character.
So to anyone who would disparage this patriot with jeers and insults, I consider you one of the new brand of shameful souls. Shame-Americans. Through all of this, and with all that confronts us as a nation, we all need to grow up a bit and show some dignity. There is nothing in this kind of discourse that will help advance the goal that we all are reaching for. A safer, fair, and respectable nation that the world will once again look up to, and one whose people set an example worthy of that position. We've got a long way to go.