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I am the first to admit that I have never been a John McCainiac. I do not like many of his positions, and stated my opinion quite forcefully on a number of occasions.
I have profound differences with the Senator, especially on illegal immigration, and I am skeptical about how 'conservative' the Senator really is.
Senator McCain has made it a point to be a 'maverick' by taking on his own party, when he should have been attacking the Democrats.
Frankly, it pissed me off.
HOWEVER.
Karl Rove has written about the John McCain that we do not know about. And his account of a dinner he had with Col. Bud Day has thawed my frozen feelings about this man.
If I learned nothing from the 90's under the Clinton Presidency, it is this: character counts.
After you read this account by Karl Rove, ask yourself this question: Would Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama reacted the same way in Hanoi, or allowed their spouses to adopt children who certainly would have died if Cindy McCain had not brought them home to America?
One other thought before I hand you over to Karl Rove's piece. It is something that I have debated in my head extensively --I was not sure if I should write anything because of the enormous potential to be misconstrued by MSM.
What the hell.
Senator Obama doesn't OWN the race issue, just because he happens to be half black and half white. His heredity is not of his own choosing, and having a dialogue about race right now is greatly complicated by Obama's friendship with Rev.Wright, who appears to blame White America for everything that is wrong with the country today.
Senator McCain has many important things to say about race, too. Issues that I hope he will discuss out on the campaign trail.
That's because the Senator and his wife adopted a black baby from an orphanage run by Mother Teresa. That undernourished and forgotten child has grown into a lovely young lady, nurtured by a family that has shielded her from the glare of public life.
They did this because they couldn't stand the idea of ANY child dying due to malnutrition and neglect. Cindy McCain had an opportunity to do something really, really important. John and Cindy McCain changed their lives, and the lives of their family members by loving a child not their own.
That's pretty heroic in my book.
Getting to Know John McCainBy KARL ROVE
April 30, 2008; Page A17
It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that Doris Day. The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.
As we ate near the Days' home in Florida recently, I heard things about Sen. McCain that were deeply moving and politically troubling. Moving because they told me things about him the American people need to know. And troubling because it is clear that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history.
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![[Getting to Know John Mccain]](../../../../public/resources/images/OB-BJ162_oj_rov_20080429173755.jpg)
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AP
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Col. (Ret.) Bud Day with John McCain at a campaign stop in Pensacola, Fla., in January.
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When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal.
Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."
The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.
But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain.
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