Liberalguy

Flyboy By Monica Crowley (bio)

In the closing speech of the Republican National Convention, John McCain went back to his roots. When he was a younger man, he was a hard-charging, gutsy pilot. Brash. Unafraid. A flyboy who took to the skies, and quickly learned a profound lesson in humility. That John McCain was on vivid display Thursday night. The fighter. He no longer flies fighter jets, of course, but the man he is today is the man he was then. Washington hasn’t changed him. Politics haven’t changed him. Life has changed him, in ways deep and significant and enduring. He stood before us without great eloquence or a preacher’s cadence. That wouldn’t have been him anyway. He stood before us, showing the signs of previously broken arms and legs, the scars of battles of the distant and recent past, and asked us to join him in the next chapter of his great American story. He doesn’t pretend to be anything he’s not. He doesn’t put on airs or contort himself trying to convince us he’s some focus-grouped approved contrivance. What you see is what you get. And what you get with John McCain is a fighter. A reformer. A conservative. A true public servant. A patriot. You get the hard-charging flyboy, only a little older, a little grayer, more seasoned, and more importantly, freer. But he’s still the flyboy at heart, in mind, in spirit. Quintessentially American. Full of life and optimism and drive and love of country. That young flyboy knew what leadership was. And the older flyboy embodies it.