We just always knew better than to beg

There are one or two things about
the send-off our society's giving
to the late John McCain, which do
trouble me. One, I think we could
consider attributing to the crook
in the White House. The other, to
the thrill-reliant custom we have
in common with his lemmings, beg-
ing protection; deliverance from
evil, one might say. What conver-
sion we find in this convergence.

I don't know how these tendencies
took root because, frankly, I was
not paying attention to trends in
American entertainment. I was too
far behind in my classics; and am
to this moment. The President has
made a contact high of his intim-
idations, and is ensconced as one
of our Tetons - by the most plain
impersonation of a Führer in that
office's history. In short, dread
of him has transformed every idea
of what to do about him, into one
horrendously laughably false con-
undrum. You hoist the raving clod
into a tumbril leaving our sight, 
not that anyone's asked.

But the deliverance-from-evil an-
xiety is what John McCain's tor-
tured trek across the continent
has revealed, as wholly beneath
any claim of respect for himself.
Just to see, or hear the trepida-
tions of the Washington press, on
how we shall ever gain any safety,
ever again, from an icon of cour-
age, honor, and the whole mythic-
al scroll of traits any tradesman
has always limned, has become so
shrill as finally to echo a boy,
begging his cowboy hero to stay.

Word for word, Brandon de Wilde
lives in the prose of Jennifer 
Rubin, Dana Milbank, Kathleen
Parker, and on and on - not that
the Post is exceptional - in the
foggiest bottom to which the 4th
Estate has ever fallen, here. We
half expect the Choir in the Cath-
edral to intone today, Pa has 
things for you to do, and Mother
wants you, I know she does.

If the American republic is on 
its knees for rescue, it's on its 
knees for what it's got in the
White House at this very moment. 
That's the heroism implored from
underdevelopment, lacking the sov-
ereign play of infantile immunity.
Only the worst of all exploiters
would answer that call, but this
open confession of incompetence
is his more perfect encouragement.














George Stevens
  Director-Producer
A.B. Guthrie, Jr.
  Screenplay
Jack Schaefer
  Book
Shane
Paramount, 1953©