The Enemy of My Enemy

In my last post I talked about John McCain, his death being the big news of the moment. I'm still struck by the fact that he asked Barack Obama to speak at his funeral. As of this writing, I haven't seen/heard the speech. I'm fascinated with this because, even though it seems like decades ago, it wasn't long ago that the twos were political adversaries. And yet, as people have been sharing recently on social media, there were several times throughout the campaign where John McCain encouraged his supporters to show respect for Barack, despite any differences in opinion. It sends such a positive, mature, and much-needed message to the Republican party, and Americans in general, that you can still admire and respect someone with whom you disagree so much that you can give them the great honor of sending you off into the next life, so to speak. It's really beautiful, actually. Perhaps more than anything else, I think it's a sign that he probably left this world at peace with all that he had done in his life.

Juxtapose this with a White House that didn't even want to fly the flag at half-mast for more than a day to honor him, in keeping with custom. The same president pretends to care about veterans and lets loose a barrage of insults on people who insists are disrespecting the flag and all it stands for*, refuses to fly the flag at half-mast for a much-revered veteran who served his country in more ways than one. Something does not add up there (as a side, thanks to Pod Save America for pointing this out). This is the same president that tries to discredit anyone that says anything alternative to what he says, and even incite violence on those people. 

But anyway, back to this idea of former foes making peace with each other. While the president constantly acts in ways that damage the American democracy, these two oppositional leaders give me a little bit of hope that some of it is still in tact. In the long run, this is the kind of story that will be written about and intelligently discussed, and not the strings of incoherent, 2AM tweets we have come so used to reading. Perhaps it took the current president's tenure for these two to realize the meaning of the ancient proverb, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".





* Although, I and many people do not believe the athletes that kneel for the anthem are being disrespectful. Rather, they are respectfully exercising free speech in order to call attention to great social injustice. Beto O'Rourke recently answered a question having to do with this topic, very poignantly.