Les Jones

News > RNC: John McCain

John McCain just gave a great speech that had to resonate in New York. McCain spoke of right and wrong, and good and evil, two concepts little addressed at the Democratic convention in Boston. He laid out the consequences of ignoring our enemies in a post-9/11 world, and the consequences we face in confronting those enemies.

I begin with the words of a great American from the other party, given at his party's convention in the year I was born. My purpose is not imitation, for I can't match his eloquence, but respect for the relveance in our time of his rousing summons to greatness of an earlier generation of Americans.

At a time of deep distress at home as tyranny strangled the aspirations for libery of millions, and as war clouds gathered in the east and west, Franklin Delano Roosevelt accepted his party's nomination by observing, "There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations, much is given. Of other generations, much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."

And there's this:

Our president will work with all nations willing to help us defeat this scourge that afflicts us all. War is an awful business. The lives of the nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer. Commerce is disrupted. Econmies are damaged. Strategic interests shielded by years of statecraft are endangered as the demands of war and diplomay conflict. However just the cause, we should mourn for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us. But there is no avoiding this war. We tried that, and our reluctance cost us dearly."

McCain's line about "a disingenuous filmmaker" resulted in a riot of applause and chants of "four more years" that took McCain a while to calm.

I have some misgivings about McCain, but he's clearly the best communicator in the GOP.