There was a defining moment during last week’s Republican YouTube debate on CNN. I realize there is a good chance you didn’t see it. The soundbite wasn’t played on most of the evening newscasts, which were too busy replaying the childish exchange between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney over the immigrant hired to care for Romney’s lawn. The most dramatic moment of the debate came with a question about the military’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy.
The question came from an audience member — a retired, highly decorated general who served his country for 43 years. He is gay, but had to deny his sexual orientation until he retired. Now he is speaking out against what he considers the "destructive" military policy toward its gay and lesbian soldiers.
The old gentleman stood and spoke in a raspy voice that sounded as if it were weary of living with a lie. "Which one of you candidates is willing to speak out against ‘don’t ask, don’t tell?’" he said.
Giuliani, a man who once shared an apartment with two gay men, was quick to repudiate his past tolerance. Once again he leaned on the terrorist threat to rebuke his own past. "We are in a war," he said. "This is not the right time to change the policy." An interesting viewpoint since the State Department dismissed six of its interpreters because they refused to hide that they are gay, and we have a well-known shortage of qualified interpreters to help us fight the war on terrorism.
Next was Romney, a man who has become a legend for disagreeing with almost everything he stood for when he was governor of Massachusetts. A clip was shown of a younger Romney with black hair, telling us he looked forward to the day when gays and lesbians could serve openly in our armed forces. Romney now says he only looks forward to the day he is president and the military can tell him what to do about gays in the military. Based on this reasoning, if Romney had been President in the late 1940s instead of Harry Truman, we would still have blacks and whites sleeping in separate barracks. It is easy to dismiss Giuliani and Romney because they evidently will say anything to get the Republican nomination, but the truly defining moment was when John McCain looked the old general in the eye and replied to his question.
McCain, the war hero. McCain, the straight talker.
Surely John McCain — the supporter of our fighting men — would understand the unfair lie the old general had been forced to live. McCain took his time answering. He thanked the gentleman for his service to our country. He said he had spoken to many servicemen and their officers and "they have told me that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is working," he said.
That was it. No hope that perhaps someday this policy would change. No acknowledgement of the many fine men and women serving in the military who have been dismissed, not for lack of dedication or courage, but because of who they are. No understanding "don’t ask, don’t tell" has not stopped the witch hunt that goes on in our armed forces even as McCain mouths his pious reply.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked the old soldier if he were satisfied with his answers. For one last time, the old gentlemen stood up, ramrod straight. "With all due respect," he rasped. "I don’t think any of the candidates answered my question."
With those words, the general sat down and the debate moved on to other topics. But there could be no worse moment for the Republican Party of 2007 than to see each of its three major candidates refuse to confront the cruel reality of a military policy that harasses some of its own brave soldiers into silence and denial. Couple this with the party’s outright hostility to the plight of immigrants — one that even countenances going after their innocent children by removing education and health benefits — and you see a political party that offers only fear as a reason for putting it back in the White House in ’08.
I have long admired McCain. I have respected his immense courage as a prisoner of war. I liked his stance as a senator against the disgraceful torture implicitly authorized by President Bush. I agreed with his early criticism of Rumsfeld’s incompetence in conducting the war in Iraq. I supported his stand for a humane policy on immigration. But one by one, McCain has either totally abandoned or modified his positions to save his fading candidacy. He compromised on torture, so it still goes on at the behest of the president. His early complaints about the Iraq War have turned into sunny optimism when there should be intelligent skepticism. He now emphasizes building fences as the cornerstone of his immigration policy.
Despite all this, there was nothing as sad as the night McCain looked an old soldier in the eye and then broke his heart.
