Your defense of McCain is amazing. It reminds me of trying to disuade a teenage daughter from running with the town hood. She agrees, "yea, that's true, but...yea, that's true also, but... ". Forget reason. It also brings to mind Sancho Panza defending Don Quixote. ("I like him, I really like him...pull out my fingernails one by one, I like him..."). Good for you.
Yeah. And I'm the dad trying to persuade the teenage daughters.
I saw your post on Sunday and appreciated it, but snugs "special post" award for MNJ in the resultant tumult pointed me back to it. His post is right on and I agree with both his post and your post almost 100%, but I have to say something here. Invoking Sancho Panza messes with my entire world view.
Don Quixote is one of the foundations of my personal view of reality. He's a madman. I accept that. But his madness is noble. It is "to the good." And he stands up against impossible odds for what is RIGHT.
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not goTo right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable starThis is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how farTo fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly causeAnd I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my restAnd the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star
And Sancho Panza recognized that Don Quixote was right, even when he was "wrong," and therefore stood by him, even in his madness. It's easy to declare "I am right" and justify almost any horror. But Don Quixote specifically argues for WHAT IS RIGHT, and action taken in defense of that. Moral absolutes. Right and wrong. Something the moral relativists reject. Sancho may even be wrong, but, like his "master," he is pursuing a correct goal, in my view. I cannot condemn someone on that basis. I can argue that their reasoning is faulty and try to convince them of the error of their position, but I can't condemn their attempt to do "what is right" on that basis alone. If I do I deny all of my own arguments of "right" and "wrong" I will not cede that ground.
I remain the eternal (cynical) optimist. And I am also the hopeless romantic.
That does not contradict your post in any way, in my view. I'm just making a different argument. (Oh, am I doomed for this, or what?)