The Magnanimous Fraud

8 Thoughts About the 2008 Election #4

One of the aspects of American politics that always gets to me is the concession speech. This is the chance for a loser, like say John McCain, to pretend to be magnanimous and conciliatory at the end of a long, hard battle. It's not designed out of respect for the system. It's not designed out of respect for the voters. It's not designed out of respect for their opponent. It is intended to rehabilitate the image of the loser. Nothing less, nothing more.

John McCain's speech was especially galling. At the end of a long campaign which saw him fail to reign in the most viciously racist political attacks seen in a Presidential campaign, John McCain said that he recognized "the special significance (the election of Barack Obama) has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight." Does he get to have it both ways? Are you allowed to condone a racist campaign and then hail the result that rejected that racism?

John McCain is a very fortunate man. There are few groups of people as willing to forgive as the American people. He can choose to live up to the ideas that many believed he stood for in 2000. He can choose to make his concession speech the true version of himself. He has to make the choice, and then he has to govern as the maverick he claims to be. He can't rehabilitate himself with words alone; he has to act on the principles that he espouses. He has to show us that what we saw in this campaign is not the real McCain. Will he?

It doesn't look like it. It appears that John McCain will campaign for Saxby Chambliss in that hot bed of racism and homophobia, Cobb County. I'm forced to conclude that John McCain has learned nothing from his defeat. McCain has not chosen to be the man of his 2000 campaign or the man of his 2008 concession speech. He's chosen to be the loyal Republican, principles be damned.

That's why he's a loser.