The Bipartisan Disdain for McCain

What is it about John McCain? The maverick senator from Arizona, despite his “straight talk” hype, cannot seem to please anyone.

Columbia students are a prime example. While McCain may have been invited to be the Columbia College commencement speaker in 2006, do not let that fool you into believing that the war hero is welcome on campus. Despite his reputation as an independent and his vocal opposition to then Governor George W. Bush in 2000, McCain was not welcomed by the usual dignified respect you would expect students to give to both a senator and an invited commencement speaker. Instead, he faced a small sea of orange umbrellas and garments in an apparent and poorly conceived attempt to mimic the real and incredibly more serious Orange Revolution in Ukraine months earlier. The aim of the protesters: to make clear their opposition to Senator McCain.

When McCain rose, so did the protesters, turning their backs to him before he even began to speak. In doing so, they also obstructed the view of those behind them–including my own. Those who would give the Iranian president a platform to speak without disturbance did their best to block a leading U.S. Senator. How pitifully ironic.

One of the purported rationales of the protest was Senator McCain’s vote in favor of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy limiting the ability of homosexuals to openly serve in the military. Notably, however, there was no similar protest against former President Bill Clinton when he came to Columbia, despite the fact that Clinton signed the policy into law. At a minimum, Clinton could have vetoed the bill to make a symbolic point. Yet Clinton received a free pass while protestors lambasted McCain.

The protest against McCain was motivated by other considerations as well. As a friend of mine that joined the protesters explained to me, McCain would soon be running for president. Accordingly, commencement was an opportunity to attack him early and potentially hurt him in that race. With such logic, they overestimated the role of Columbia commencement in the electoral process, while politicizing an event that should have been about the accomplishment of the graduates rather than the election of 2008. If students did not want to give McCain a platform, they should not have invited him to speak. Yet their student government did invite him, and so they could at least have listened.

McCain’s speech, by all objective standards, rose above the protests. While the protesters had written off McCain before he began, this did not stop him from emphasizing the need to look beyond our divisions toward solving the problems facing our nation. In response to their open defiance, and the sight of their backs, McCain responded with an open hand. As he declared to the audience, “Americans deserve more than tolerance from one another, we deserve each other’s respect, whether we think each other right or wrong in our views...”

When the protesters did respond to McCain’s message, it was with disgust. They were appalled in part because McCain had presented a nearly identical address at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University just days before. The implication was that Columbia, as a superior institution, deserved a completely individual message. Yet if that is what students wanted, they should have invited Mitt Romney.

Ultimately, such criticism missed just how revolutionary McCain’s speeches were. In delivering the same message to separate audiences leaning both far right and left, McCain demonstrated who he is: a person who refuses to reshape his message depending on who he addresses. Rather than pander, he preaches the same message to all sides with humility and respect. He practices the tolerance that he preaches. Yet this trait has made him few friends.

For some at Columbia, the idea that McCain was willing to talk to those at Liberty University was enough to taint his message altogether. The same is true of some conservatives, who view McCain’s conservative credentials as tarnished by his willingness to talk and compromise with those on the left, despite his 82 percent conservative voting record in the Senate. If there is one thing upon which the far left and far right undoubtedly agree, perhaps it is their mutual disdain for Senator McCain.
During my time at Columbia, I repeatedly heard students blame President Bush for the current state of political division. Yet through their dismissal of McCain for bringing the same unaltered message to conservatives and liberals alike, the protesters of 2006 demonstrated that they are, in fact, equally part of the problem.

Bipartisanship can only work if there are voices that can reach across the aisle. Fortunately, a person with such a voice, McCain, will likely be the Republican nominee for president, to the dismay of some in the conservative establishment. Hopefully when McCain speaks this time around, bringing the same message to the nation as a whole as he brought to Columbia, those of you that are inclined to protest will at least listen first. Unless, of course, what you really want is continued partisan division.

The author is a member of the Columbia College class of 2006.