Ross: Why I will personally miss John McCain

I only met John McCain once, but I liked him because he would say things he knew his audiences, and his party, didn’t want to hear. “Straight talk,” he called it.

It was a high standard, and one he couldn’t always meet – as when he condemned torture, but went along with a legal loophole that let the CIA continue to practice it. And his decision just before the 2000 South Carolina primary to evade a question about his personal opinion of the Confederate flag. He chose to call the flag “a symbol of heritage.”

He lost the primary anyway.

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But a month later, he went before a group of Conservative South Carolina businessmen, across the street from the state capitol where the flag still flew, and told them his answer on the flag had been factual …

“But it was not an honest answer to the question,” he said.

The honest answer was that his ancestors, who fought on the Confederate side of America’s Civil War, may have fought honorably …

My ancestors fought for the Confederacy, and I’m sure that many, maybe all of them, fought with courage and with faith that they were serving a cause greater than themselves, but I don’t believe their service, however distinguished, needs to be commemorated in a way that offends, that deeply hurts people whose ancestors who were once denied their freedom by my ancestors. Those ancestors of mine might have fought honorably, they might have fought to uphold a principle they believed was just, but they fought to sever the union of our great nation, a cause that would have terribly harmed America, perhaps irreparably, and for a time at least, perpetuated the grave injustice of slavery. They fought on the wrong side of American history. That my friends is how I personally feel about the Confederate battle flag. That is the honest answer I never gave to a fair question. I believe the flag should be removed from your capitol.

The Confederate flag was removed from the South Carolina capitol – five years later.

It’s tough to figure out which politicians are most likely to tell you the truth. But I think a pretty good gauge is when one of them – with nothing to gain by it – just up and confesses when he makes a mistake. Which is why I’ll miss John McCain.

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