Jeffery Ford: Can We Forgive John McCain for His Ultimate Sin?
We Americans are a forgiving people. We quickly forgave Japan after the Second World War and spent $2.2 billion (which would now be $18 billion adjusted for inflation) to help rebuild the country that launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that killed over 2,300 U.S. service personnel.
Even while fighting continued in both Afghanistan and Iraq, American contractors who were frequently in grave danger helped rebuild parts of those countries’ infrastructure. The United States also displayed its humanitarian nature by allowing citizens from Iraq and Afghanistan to immigrate into our country despite potential security concerns.
We Americans have proven ourselves to be some of the most forgiving people on earth. So, just why is it then that so many of us are finding it nearly impossible to soften our hearts enough to fully forgive the late Senator John McCain?
The answer to that question can be summed up in three disastrous words … Barack Hussein Obama.
The 2008 Republican nominee John McCain could not possibly have faced a weaker, less deserving opponent for president than Obama. It was McCain’s election to lose and it appeared that he chose to do precisely that when in a town hall meeting, McCain said of Obama, “He is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared (of) as president of the United States.”
McCain later doubled down in that same town hall meeting and said, “He’s a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”
It was enough to make many voters wonder if McCain had possibly signed a non-compete clause in order to win the Republican nomination because by any objective standard, Obama had already proven himself to be anything but a “decent person,” or a “decent family man.”
Obama took his wife and two young daughters into church on Sundays to listen to their Reverend Jeremiah Wright spew forth anti-American rhetoric such as, “No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” And after the Sept. 11 attacks, Reverend Wright said, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” Wright also once referred to the U.S.A as, “the US KKK of A.”
Now ask yourself this: Would any truly red, white and blue “decent family man” ever want his two precious daughters to be raised in such a church?
And would a truly “decent man” choose (like Obama did) to have his Illinois state Senate seat campaign be launched in the home of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn? Ayers and Dohrn were two leaders of The Weather Underground, a radical, left-wing militant group that declared a state of war against the United States government. The group was responsible for a series of bombings during the 1970s that included the United States Capitol, the Pentagon, the United States Department of State building and several banks.
Knowing all of Obama’s past, it certainly stretches credibility to believe that Republican nominee McCain was acting in good faith when he was referring to his political opponent as “a decent man” and a “decent family man.”
McCain’s ultimate sin wasn’t his role as one of The Keating Five, nor was it any of his infuriating votes in the Senate which earned him the reputation of being a RINO (Republican In Name Only.)
Sen. McCain’s ultimate sin is that he was responsible for making Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States, which thereby makes McCain also partially responsible for what occurred under Obama’s regime that weakened our nation, doubled our national debt and brought about more racial divisiveness than we had experienced in over half of a century.
During the last ten years of his life, McCain’s actions were at times highly destructive to the United States of America whether he intended them to be or not. We will never know for sure what was in his heart and mind when he made some of the comments, choices and votes that he made.
But if we as a nation have been able to forgive so many foreign countries over the years who we’ve been at war with … shouldn’t we also be able to find it in our collective soul to also forgive one of our own who may possibly have been trying to do his very best as a United States senator in service to our country?
We need to heal as a nation and that healing can immediately begin with our finding it in our indomitable American spirit to forgive John McCain for every error in judgment he ever made. We can learn many lessons from McCain’s past actions and also from our own mistakes in nominating so many Republican candidates who are Republicans In Name Only.
The era of Sen. McCain and the presidency of Obama are both officially over. It’s now time for us to collectively move forward into a unified and compelling future where we leave the past back in the pasture where it belongs … which from 2008-2016 would definitely be the dung heap of history.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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