Saddest reflection of the day

But the experience of the 2008 campaign is disturbingly unique. For the first time in modern political history, a presidential campaign, its candidate and running mate have engaged in a repeated pattern of lies and misstatements — and seemingly done so without pause.

The greatest surprise in all of this is that Mr. McCain is the one responsible. This the same John McCain who had untruths about his mental stability and his supposedly illegitimate black daughter (she’s Bangladeshi and adopted) hurled against him by allies of George Bush during the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary. This is the same John McCain who has long emphasized his embrace of personal honor and integrity that he learned as an officer in the Navy.

And consider Mr. McCain’s 1999 biography “Faith of my Fathers” in which he writes of his father and grandfather and his life-long aspirations “to live my life according to the terms of their approval.” In speaking of the bedrock role that personal honor and virtue played in his father’s life, he recounts his brother’s words about John S. McCain Jr.: “I have never met a more honest man than my father. I literally cannot think of a single time he did not tell the truth about something, as he best knew it.”

One can only wonder what John McCain’s father would think of the campaign his son is running today.

--MICHAEL A. COHEN

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