The flags have flown at half-mast for the last two
thousand miles. I’ve watched them wave in front of school yards and post
offices and fast food stores. In Missouri, five steel poles stood at stoic attention
beside the sixth, as even an amusement park outside St. Louis paid respect to
the senator from Arizona. It stood out like a missing man formation.
The
senator from Arizona was gone.
I don’t follow politics very much. It usually makes my
blood pressure go up when people who should be enjoying a nice Thanksgiving
dinner bring out their political opinions in public and ruin everyone’s
appetite. I don’t like arguing. I don’t like posturing. I don’t like debating. I’m
not a black and white person. I see and hear many shades of gray on many issues.
So many, in fact, that I fear giving my opinion to anyone lest I’m never
invited to their Thanksgiving meals
again.
But I do have opinions. And now and then I can’t help
myself. So, if you’ve hung in here this long, here’s what I think.
When a national leader dies, the tradition here in this
country is to lower the flag to half-mast in his honor—especially in
Washington, D.C. Not just for the required forty-eight hours, but all the way
until sundown on the day he is buried. It’s not a political thing. It’s a
matter of respect. If elementary schools in tiny towns in Kentucky know how to
honor a man who gave sixty years of his life in service to his country, it only
stands to reason that our president should know the proper thing to do, too,
regardless of his personal feelings.
If I lived in the White House, it wouldn’t matter if I
hated the politics of a Republican leader who passed away, the flag should
still be flown at half-mast until sunset the night of his funeral. If I refused
to play nice with Democrats but one of their own died while in office, same
thing—half-mast until sundown after the funeral. This isn’t hard. It’s just what
it means to behave like an adult.
Like I said, I don’t follow politics. I don’t listen
to the evening news if I can help it. I don’t trust the media’s perspective and
I don’t put my faith in politicians. But I’ve been reading up on the senator
from my home state of Arizona, and I’m impressed not only by what he endured as
a POW, but also by the way he handled himself in Washington’s pressure cooker.
For over a week, as we drove east across America, in
every town and city every flag we saw flew in honor of John McCain. It
impressed me every single time I saw it. I didn’t know so many people even knew
about our Lion in the Senate, and maybe they didn’t. But what they did know was
how to do the right thing.
I want you to know I’m proud of you, America, all your
red states and your blue states. You put partisanship aside to show compassion to
the family of one of our own in their time of grief.
That’s what makes America great.
