What's Important 42

Forty-second in a series.

This is from that excellent blog Slactivist, where Fred asks:

Did John McCain sleep through 1989? Was he on some kind of yearlong bender? Maybe he was just really busy clearing up after that Keating affair.

In any case, John McCain doesn't remember 1989. That means he's forgotten some of the most unforgettable moments in the 20th century. And having forgotten them, or having somehow, incredibly, missed them entirely, John McCain is unable to understand what happened and why.

Instead, McCain tries to rewrite history as though 1989 never happened. And from this foolish and fictional history, he draws some foolish and fictional lessons.

Fred recaps the year - with photos! - and ends by saying:

All of those people in all of those pictures were risking their lives, but they took that risk because they believed that if they stood together -- "as one," even -- then no challenge was too great for them.

But John McCain thinks it's wrong to give them any credit for that. He thinks it's wrong -- un-American -- to give them any credit for their courage in coming together to claim their freedom. After all, McCain argues, America and the "great democracies" had stood for decades against the Soviet Union and that proud history mustn't be forced to share the stage with anyone else's proud history. America and its allies alone deserve credit and praise. To suggest that any of that credit or praise be shared with the people in the pictures above, McCain says, is to be "unclear" on an "important point."

I just don't get where McCain is coming from here. I mean, I recognize it, of course -- we've all seen this same attitude from bullies and abusers and other emotionally warped and soulless types who confuse love and chauvinism. But I don't get it.

How is it possible to look at pictures like the ones above and not be inspired?

More than that, how is it possible to look at those pictures and resent those people -- to view them as insufficiently grateful or as trying to steal the glory you feel is your due and yours alone?

What exactly is wrong with John McCain? Because some vital part seems to be missing. Or dead.