Op-Ed: McCain Honored Wright In Not Attacking Him During Campaign

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican candidate John McCain endured a lot of criticism from some of his Republican supporters angry that McCain had refused to air ads with Jeremiah Wright's inflammatory sermons.

Many believed these sermons were fair game and a potential silver bullet against Barack Obama. John McCain's top pollster, Bill McInturff, later said that attacking Barack Obama over his relationship with Jeremiah Wright would not have helped McCain's campaign and could have destroyed his presidency, had he been elected. McInturff recalled of the internal discussions about cutting attack ads with Wright. "If [McCain] had used that issue that way, you’d already be delegitimized as a president. You couldn’t function as government." Towards the closing days of the campaign an outside group did air one such ad but it was viewed as perhaps too little, too late to make any difference in the outcome. Reportedly for reasons of principle, and out of concern that he'd be viewed as racist if he were to win the election, McCain took the Wright issue off of the table. But I have a theory of why McCain ultimately decided not to use Wright and it deals with some of the narrative he has closely cultivated for himself during his years in office, particularly dealing with honor. In 1983, the United States was involved in a United States peace-keeping military engagement in Lebanon that included American aircraft. On December 4, 1983, during one bombing run over Beirut, an American A-6 Intruder was shot down. During the ejection and landing the pilot, Lt. Mark Lange and his bombardier/navigator, Robert O. Goodman were wounded and captured. Lange's left leg was severely injured landing and he died shortly after capture by Syrian troops, while Goodman, broke three ribs, injured a shoulder and a knee during the landing, but was otherwise stable. He was later captured and by the Syrians and taken to Damascus, where he was held for nearly a month. Goodman, like McCain is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and like McCain was a POW. In 1984, Jesse Jackson travelled to Libya and Syria to negotiate for the release of Goodman. Jesse Jackson is hailed as the man who orchestrated the trip and who receives the credit for the feat. What I find interesting is that folks don't mention the fact that Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Minister Louis Farrakhan accompanied Reverend Jackson on the mission to secure the release of Goodman. President Ronald Reagan even praised that mercy mission and the three religious leaders for getting Goodman back at the White House, 25 years ago today. For John McCain, a first-term congressman at the time, the mission should have been very heartfelt due to the fact that he himself was a POW and was released from captivity nearly 10 years earlier. It is not lost on me that if he attacked Wright on one hand for his fiery sermons; he would be condemning a man who shared a part in bringing home a Navy hero from captivity. Wright for his part served in the Marines and the Navy as a corpseman. For all of the talk of McCain's burden in the final days was to close the gap with young voters and Latino voters, if McCain had mentioned this fact about Wright as a reason for not attacking him, he could have possibly gained some ground. Alas, we will never know. I was one of the harshest critics of John McCain and his tactics during his campaign. I thought him very admirable in not bringing Wright into the fold during the campaign and I must give him even more credit for it in light of this event. John McCain and his return of honor.