July 17, 2008

Media Ignores McCain Slap at Bush

Last week, the McCain campaign released an ad named "Love" that warned viewers that "beautiful words cannot make our lives better."  The ad starts with a graphic contrast of veteran John McCain to the hippies of the '60s: "It was a time of uncertainty, hope and change: the summer of love. Half a world away, another kind of love...of country. John McCain: shot down, bayoneted, tortured..."

Cable news reporters have been uniformly slavish and, truth to tell, dull-witted in their drooling praise of this emotional and flamboyant play for the American heart.  They love the ad's appeal to patriotism.  They love the ad's dramatization of John McCain's service and heroism.

They have completely ignored the insult that this ad directs at President George W. Bush.

Perhaps they thought that the only people being insulted are those who, during the Summer of Love, were of draft age but who actively avoided the draft and instead protested the Vietnam War ― you know, those nasty, godless, anti-American hippies.

Problem is: George W. Bush, having been born in 1946, did in fact turn 21 during the Summer of Love.  But no hippy was W.  Instead, he joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, one year after the Summer of love, where he did his utmost to avoid responsibility, to party, etc.  The important thing is this: W's service got him no closer to military glory (or danger) than his fantasies.

So, in 1967, while W was getting his degree from Yale, and the hippies reveled in the Summer of Love, "half a world away" there was "another love...of country."

"Another" love?  Well, those are the words of Senator McCain's ad.  The godless hippies engaged in one love, but the other love, love of country ― well, that love ― the good love ― was to be found, not in San Francisco, but in Vietnam.

Now, I don't mind John Sidney McCain getting all riled up and castigating all those godless hippies for their lack of love of country.  But claiming the same of W?  Well, it's unseemly!

Let's be clear.  The ad strongly suggests that hippies, protesters and other such young people of that ilk had no love of country because they refused to fall in line with the obsession of Lyndon Baines Johnson.  LBJ actually got some good things done ― domestically ― during his administration, but when it came to Vietnam, he had his head wedged firmly up his ass.

These young people opposed the war and were unaware that love of country demanded that they follow LBJ half way around the world to shoot at ― and to be shot at by ― people who had in fact done them no harm.  Vietnam was a civil war and Ho Chi Minh was popular on both sides of the demilitarized zone.  The Gulf of Tonkin incident, which Congress used as a pretext to legitimize the war, was, by all accounts, a sham.

These young people foolishly believed that they could love their country and still partake of freedom of assembly and disagree with political leaders.  These young people foolishly believed that they could express love of country by trying to reform and improve their country's foreign policy.

But John Sidney McCain's ad lumps W and the hippies together as godless, Communistic, America-hating, flag-burning evil-doers who lacked the patriotism to travel to a foreign land and shoot somebody.

Perhaps there is hope for W?  After all, he did not protest the war ― rather, he slid around it by joining the National Guard.  In other words, he did not whine about the war ― and, God knows, Sidney and friends disapprove of whiners!

Perhaps the ultimate validity of Sidney's ad lies in its statement that "beautiful words cannot make our lives better."  Of course, people who have been inspired by beautiful words, whether from the Declaration of Independence or the Bible, might disagree, but certainly there is reason to believe that stupid, banal, self-serving, arrogant words can muck things up.

One cable news contributor, a lady who, sadly, borders on cute, said that perhaps the point of the ad (below) is that John McCain understands what this country is about and that "the young just don't get it."

No, Maria, I think you are wrong.  Not only do the young "get" it, but they are also the ones who "get" to die in the wars of angry old men.