After watching the acceptance speech by Senator McCain tonight, I was somewhat surprised to find how tepid the reaction was by bloggers at the various conservative sites I visit. While I recognized that the moderate policies that he promoted were not the red meat that had been offered up the previous night, the story that he presented was still very moving and authentic.
As I thought on this further, maybe it is something that comes with age. The majority of those of us who blog (including myself, at the tender number of 27 years) are too young to have known real suffering and deprivation. The man spent five and a half years living at the whim of another. Maybe we know this story better, but I don’t think America did.
It is a sad truth how little is actually known about the people running for public office. We have Presidents who will shape policy impacting the whole world, and the disappointing reality is that had the football game run long, the speech would have necessarily been delayed. Our generation is so immured in information, we lose sight of the moment and the lasting.
John McCain is not a great orator. He does not master rhetorical flourishes, and he does not need to do so. Instead, what he gave tonight was something that called to something deeper. He spoke of service and sacrifice, and he has lived a lifetime to prove this. He spoke to an America that believed in itself not as ideologies, but as ideas. He spoke to what was best about us, culminating in a strong finish.
Neil Stevens
Moe Lane
Erick Erickson
Jeff Emanuel
Steve Maley
Caleb Howe
