This gracious nod to McCain cannot hurt Obama, of course, and so it's not noble in any objective way, but it's presidential behavior and it's gracious. People don't give Obama credit enough for staying remarkably civil during onslaughts from first the Clinton campaign and now the Rove machine. In this climate, the grace is actually lethally effective politics as well:
“I want to acknowledge that Senator McCain tried to tone down the
rhetoric in his town hall meeting yesterday,” Mr. Obama said, speaking
at an early-morning rally in North Philadelphia. “I appreciated his
reminder that we can disagree while still being respectful of each
other. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Senator McCain has
served this country with honor, and he deserves our thanks for that.”
As I watched last week, as McCain constructed yet another a massive effort to detonate Obama, I couldn't help but think of this again. It sums up the entire fall campaign in a way:
There is a consistency and pattern to the reports, along with detailed testimony from many FBI agents, that make me believe that using faith to torture prisoners was far from rare.
Gabler is surely onto something in seeing the McCarthyite strain in American conservatism being more tenacious and transmittable, because human resentment is more common and politically potent than agreement about limited government.
