GayPatriot

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John McCain: Mensch

by

Both John Hinderaker and Glenn Reynolds remind me of a story I’d heard many times before, a story which defines the man who should be the next President of the United States.

As Morris Udall, a long-serving Democratic Representative from Arizona, like John McCain, lay dying from Parkinson’s disease in a veterans hospital in Northeast Washington, one man would stop by to pay his respects on a regular basis:

Udall is seldom conscious, and even then he shows no sign of recognition. McCain brings with him a stack of newspaper clips on Udall’s favorite subjects: local politics in Arizona, environmental legislation, Native American land disputes, subjects in which McCain initially had no particular interest himself. Now, when the Republican senator from Arizona takes the floor on behalf of Native Americans, or when he writes an op-ed piece arguing that the Republican Party embrace environmentalism, or when the polls show once again that he is Arizona’s most popular politician, he remains aware of his debt to Arizona’s most influential Democrat.

. . . .

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn’t long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain. “He’s not going to wake up this time,” McCain said.

There is a term we Jews have for the type of man who does what John McCain did: mensch.  I can still remember when my Dad first used the term and I asked him what it meant.  It was the best compliment you could pay to a person, a fully realized human being.

Comments

  1. Perhaps if Sen. Obama wins, his character in office will make all of our concerns about his past associations and actions seem foolish. I won’t say that’s not a real possibility. However, I am fairly certain that as POTUS, millions and millions of Obama-voting Americans are going to ask themselves “we could have elected a man of John McCain’s proven character—why did we go with the other guy?”

  3. Does this make Palin a wensch?

    I mailed my ballot yesterday. There has been much said of McCain over the years, particularly this last one. I feel better about voting for him than I ever did voting for Bush. In our jaded age, it sounds hokey but there have been times I’ve wished I could do more for our country. Today more than any other, the most I can do is vote for greater liberty and although the term ‘socialist’ has been ridiculed as a scare tactic, I truly believe that for the first time in our history, we are faced with the prospect of an explicitly socialist president.

    Go vote.

  10. “We Republicans are voting for the man who should have been President in 2000”

    Amen.

    I just worked three hours at the polls. In this fairly small, GOP voting district in central Pennsylvania, I was the 396th person to vote on my way out the door. That’s a huge turnout — in this case, a huge GOP turnout.

    It ain’t over.

  12. Does this make Palin a wensch?

    I love it, I’ll be using that one from now on. It will drive my lib friends crazy since aside from angry hag – I don’t think there is any endearing term for a woman they like.