In July of 1951, I accepted a transfer from St. Louis to Kansas City. I knew that Kansas City had hot weather in July and other summer months, but St. Louis was no bargain either. One of my colleagues told me that in Kansas City during the summer, it gets “hotter than the hubs of Hell.” Another colleague told me that in Kansas City, it “gets hotter than a ‘by-god.’” I had already been to Kansas City on a few occasions and I knew about the weather there during the summer, but this was a promotion and I knew that the new job went with the territory. If it was hotter than the hubs of Hell, so be it.
Now, more than 55 years later, I am still learning about what goes with the territory as it relates to my radio listening and political speeches. Last Thursday night, I made a terrible mistake in that I listened to John McCain’s speech accepting the Republican nomination for President instead of continuing to listen to a baseball play-by-play of the New York Mets. It was a blunder of the first order. On one hand, McCain urged me to go fight somebody on 30 some odd occasions and then he took something like eight minutes or thereabouts to talk about being shot down and serving as a prisoner of war. In that section of his speech where he urged us all to go fight somebody, he left me slightly confused. Presumably the object of McCain’s unhappiness had to do with the way things are in Washington. This came at the close of McCain’s remarks and was delivered by his yelling at the audience. People who write speeches call the conclusion of such a speech the “peroration.” I gather that McCain was angry with lobbyists. I thought to myself that I could return to my former offices on K Street in Washington and look up a lobbyist and sock him in the jaw. But McCain has so many lobbyists on his payroll that it might be one of his lobbyists that I socked. So I sit here today urgently prepared to fight somebody in accordance with McCain’s wishes but I don’t know who my opponent might be.
Shortly before McCain reached his peroration, he spent perhaps seven or eight minutes talking about being shot down and being a prisoner of war. That part of McCain’s speech seemed to me to cross the line. For a man to cite the unpleasantness of being a prisoner of war to ask for your votes offends those of us who have also been shot down and who have served time as a POW. Beyond all that, it is an oxymoronic thought that because a man is shot down, he deserves your vote to be President of the United States. Those two things simply don’t compute.
The question before the house is whether McCain has the competence to carry out the office of the presidency of the United States, not whether he was shot down or served a term as a POW. The fact that he was shot down is irrelevant as it pertains to the American presidency.
If you look at McCain’s career, you will find that his grandfather and his father were both admirals in the United States Navy. When it became time for this John McCain to attend a college, he was given a free ride at the United States Naval Academy. When such a person graduates from the academy, he is obliged to serve a term in the active forces of the United States Navy. It simply goes with the territory.
Then John McCain learned to fly a fighter plane and he should have known what the price would be if he were shot down. On his 23rd mission, McCain was indeed shot down and taken as a prisoner of war. That is entirely usual because it goes with the territory. We were at war with the Vietnamese and they had McCain fall right into their laps. McCain had to know that when you bomb people and machine gun them, they will be angry with you. When they shoot your plane down, they will take you prisoner. It simply goes with the territory.
Al Goebel, a former colleague of mine, had a pungent thought on this sort of subject. Goebel was a pompous fellow who had flown B-29 aircraft with the 20th Air Force in the Pacific. On one occasion, Goebel had remarked that when you put on that uniform, it wasn’t just for parades or to impress the girls. It meant that from time to time people were going to shoot at you and that they might kill you or take you prisoner. It simply went with the territory. On this occasion, Al Goebel was entirely right. But I will tell you that during the 30 years that I knew him, there were few other things that we agreed on.
Four days after the McCain speech, I am still baffled as to why this man would lower himself to recite his experiences as a POW in the thought that it would translate into votes. I will stipulate that McCain is a brave man and that he endured unspeakable torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese. What I will not stipulate is that his experience in that respect qualifies him to be President of the United States. Again, it just doesn’t go with the territory.
Some of you may remember Bob Dole, who was the long-time Republican senator from Kansas. Near the end of the Second World War, Dole was injured by German gunfire and was forced to spend more than two years in Army hospitals attempting to recuperate. This happened in the Po Valley of northern Italy. The fact that Dole was a hero was never concealed from the American public but when Dole ran for president, he did not cite his suffering as a means of asking people to vote for him. Dole is a retrogressive thinker and I have no use for his brand of politics. During his presidential campaign, there were others who told his story but Dole never tried to milk tears from the electorate’s eyes because of pity for him. Dole was in the infantry and took a terrible injury but he knew that this was a distinct possibility. It simply went with the territory. But apparently McCain does not share that view.
In the same Po Valley in northern Italy, the senior senator from Hawaii, Daniel K. Inouye, was injured and lost his left arm all the way up to the armpit. On top of Inouye’s injury, he also suffered the discrimination against the Japanese during World War II. There was an occasion when he went into a barber shop with only one arm and the barber refused to cut his hair. The barber said, “We don’t cut no Jap hair here.” Inouye served with a Japanese battalion that was assigned the toughest missions in Italy. Now Inouye knew that he could be injured and that he would suffer discrimination when he returned home. He also knew that it went with the territory. Apparently, however, John McCain has really not learned that lesson.
I suppose I should know better than to hear a political speech when there is a ball game on the radio. The fact that I have been interested in political matters in this country for 80 years or so is no real excuse. I should have known that to listen to the blatherings of any politician would anger me but I did it anyway. So I suppose that if you are going to listen to political speeches, there is a price to pay. As we say, it simply goes with the territory.
And as for Kansas City, the summer out there was hotter than a by-god or also hotter than the hubs of Hell.
The political conventions are now finished, which means that political junkies such as myself may return to more noble pursuits such as listening to baseball broadcasts. Happiness has to do with baseball, our national sport. That happiness with baseball goes with the territory and is much to be preferred to listening to political speeches.
E. E. CARR
September 9, 2008
Essay 336
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Kevin’s commentary: I’ve never heard of something being hotter than a by-god before. I’m struggling to even interpret what a by-god could possibly be. The closest I can get is maybe it was so hot, that the expression “By God, it’s hot!” is an understatement? Who the hell knows.
In other news, maybe Pop is reading McCain’s claims the wrong way. Instead of saying that being a POW doesn’t qualify you to be president, Pop should take the stance that since he was also a POW, you should have written him in on the ballot.