Posted on 07/02/2007 9:37:30 AM PDT by dangus
As the American people, elected officials, and commentators reflect on the heated immigration debate that came to a temporary close in the Senate this week many will ask, and have asked, why U.S. Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.) staked out a position that may, in retrospect, be seen as devastating to his presidential ambitions. I hope the American people, at least, step back from the obsessive play-by-play pre-season election analysis and reflect on Senator McCain’s actions for what I believe they were: One of the purest examples of political courage seen in Washington in a very, very long time.
Before I elaborate, let me state as clearly as I can that my comments are not an endorsement. I have not endorsed any Republican candidate for president and I may not make such an endorsement. As senators, telling the American people how to vote ought to be far down on our list of priorities.
I opposed Senator McCain in this immigration debate. I believed the policies he advocated were wrong for America and I used every tool at my disposal to defeat his position. However, the way Senator McCain conducted himself represented the essential qualities of leadership the American people deserve.
Senator McCain didn’t speak in generalities. He spoke in specific terms. He didn’t take a position and change his position when he came under withering fire. He didn’t pander. He didn’t equivocate. He didn’t demean his opponents in the Senate or insinuate we harbored base motives or secret prejudices. He was motivated by principle. He believed he was serving his country. He was not inspired by political strategists who foolishly believed they could use this bill to grow the Republicans party, and did not lecture his colleagues about why those strategists were smarter and wiser than 80 percent of Americans.
When Senator McCain lost this battle he didn’t express self-pity or bitterness. Instead, he said he would carry on and offered a unifying message that is beyond debate, saying, “The American people will not settle for the status quo — de facto amnesty and broken borders.”
Whether you agree with him or not, Senator McCain’s actions demonstrated the qualities we rarely see in Washington — courage, character, honor, and dignity.
It saddens me that so many commentators will judge Senator McCain’s actions by how his roll in this debate will impact the next poll or fundraising report. Survival is not the highest virtue in politics. Sacrifice is the highest virtue. In battle we don’t ask which soldier was a success — the one who charged the hill and lives a long life or his friend beside him who falls and leaves a widow and children behind. Whether this week helps or hurts Senator McCain politically is not the point. What matters is that without courage, we all lose.
Most politicians possess, in abundance, the skill of making promises that will appeal to a majority of voters. Very few politicians, however, ever demonstrate the kind of political courage Senator McCain demonstrated in this debate. Many qualities, of course, matter when selecting our elected leaders — political philosophy, judgment, specific plans, etc. — but the most important quality upon which all others depend is courage. On that count, Senator McCain has given all of us in the Senate an example to be followed.
— Dr. Tom Coburn (R.) is a United States senator from Oklahoma.
I'm vertainly never gonna vote for McCain, and I'm going to work tirelessly to rid the Republican Party of the likes of Hagel, Graham, Specter, and Warner. But it's even been disconcerting to me how Fred Thompson, for instance, could have previously aligned himself with McCain. (Thompson opposed McCain's amnesty, and has called McCain-Feingold a failure which he regrets having supported.)
The witness of a man of what I consider to be impeccable principle, such as Dr. Coburn, cannot be dismissed lightly. I wouldn't override my own judgment with his, but I can suppose that someone like Fred Thompson needn't have been aligned with corrupt forces when he campaigned for McCain... especially he had a sense of just how lousy of a president El Jorge would be.
Standing for the wrong thing is now courage?
Best McCain sit down.
Courage my ass. Stupidity in spades.
“I hope the American people, at least, step back from the obsessive play-by-play pre-season election analysis and reflect on Senator McCain’s actions for what I believe they were: One of the purest examples of political courage seen in Washington in a very, very long time.”
Stupidity and insanity are not courage.
How McCain conducted himself? Like cursing at people, calling them bigots, and lying?
Screw McCain, my Senator, and I just lost some respect for Coburn.
Is it courageous to support a bill when you don’t know what’s in it?
Original thread on this steaming dungheap of an essay:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1858627/posts
I’d like more liberals to take such “courageous” stands.
Coburn should take his foot out of his mouth, and get about the buisness of controling the borders. McLame is finished as a presidential canidate. He’s a dead man walking, and we can thank God! for it. There is only one thing worse the being a panderer and that is being wrong and not knowing it!
I will not vote for an angry bitter old man regardless of his heroic background. His money is all but dried up, he will be out before the fist primary vote is cast.
This is going to be a primary between the Rino’s and the Conservatives and since theres only one precieved rino ‘Rudy’, conservatives had better settle on one conservative by november or the conservative primary vote will be split and ‘Rudy’ could win. Just a warning from a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
Coburn has integrity in spades. Unfortunately, we are so short of real leadership that every real leader needs to be good in other ways as well. His praise of McQueeg is ill-timed and beside the point. McQueeg was disastrously wrong on this issue, and has been disastrously wrong on others. As has been aptly said, whenever McQueeg leads, he leads against us and with the Dems. At the moment, praise from a conservative leader is just inappropriate. We should be burying McQueeg, not praising him. After he’s buried, maybe a few positive words are in order. In addition, I don’t like Coburn’s standoffish comment about not “telling” people how to vote for president. I don’t see an endorsement as “telling” anyone anything. It’s simply the contribution of the endorser’s wisdom and judgment, if any, to the debate. A real leader shouldn’t shy away from that with the excuse that he doesn’t want to “tell” people whom to vote for. It should go without saying that political leaders, in this context, don’t order anyone to do anything. It should also go without saying that political leadership is about influencing other people. Coburn knows more than all but a small fraction of Republican voters. Therefore, he should contribute his thoughts to the presidential contest, and sooner or later that should mean an endorsement.
The simpler explanation is
McCVain is an idiot
I won’t fault Coburn for suffering a stupid moment. He may be a friend of McCain’s, but a Senator has to put his country before his friends, if it comes down to such a choice.
There is no “courage” in betraying your country. No more than when McCain was head of the committee investigating the POW/MIAs in Vietnam, and abused that position to pretend that there was no problem. That was not courage, that was treason to his country and, perhaps even worse, disloyalty to his fellow POWs.
Sen. Coburn is displaying one of the many unfortunate traits so typical of Republicans: Heaping effusive praise on one who has proven to be an intractable enemy, and I speak of McCain. Although Coburn has many good qualities that endear him to conservatives, if one comes along who possesses the same qualities plus an absence of this ridiculous obsession for collegiality in the Senate, I would dump Coburn in a heartbeat for the improved version. We want partisanship. Think of it as diversity, because there’s no truer kind.
Demand a border fence! Build it NOW!! Beef up the border patrol and close our borders!
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White House comments: (202) 456-1111
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Courtesy of a pro-amnesty group, no less!!
Republican National Committee
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phone: 202.863.8500 | fax: 202.863.8820 | e-mail: info@gop.com
I sure like Dr. Coburn.
Me too.
Dr. Coburn can personally admire McCain all he wants, as long as he doesn’t support McCain’s agenda.
McCain-Feingold should have been thrown out, root and branch.It is a blot on the escutcheon of any politician to have ever supported it. Including Fred Thompson. It bespeaks a lack of vision, IMHO. I want my president to be a leader, and a leader is someone who has thought things through beforehand and knows the answer before I fully realize what the question is. Like Ronald Reagan.
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