The Tragedies of John McCain and Sandra Day O’Connor (in Three Acts)

Against the backdrop of a national tragedy, the story of the Bush years include their fair share of personal tragedies, unfolding on the national stage in untold or barely sketched stories.  Two come to mind.

Exeunt.

As told by Jeff Toobin, Sandra Day O’Connor’s story is almost Shakespearean in the magnitude of the “character arc” she’s forced to undergo, and the events that impel her along it. In Act I, faithful to Governor Bush’s message of “compassionate conservatism,” Justice O’Connor casts the tie-breaking vote to “elect” Bush, while Cheney is already scheming to betray that message. In Act II, Bush’s party proceeds to betray her firm beliefs in moderation and the law by taking a nasty anti-intellectual, anti-judicial, anti-woman, and extralegal turn. And, in the traumatic dénouement (don’t miss it!), O’Connor is forced to resign from her beloved Court to tend to her dying husband, only to watch him slip away from her while Bush drags his heels on finding her replacement, ultimately nominating her jurisprudential arch-nemesis Samuel Alito to fill her spot as the curtain falls. Just awful.

Senator John McCain’s story might be second in tragedy only to Justice O’Connor’s.  This is a man who’s served his country nobly, and done almost everything right as a politician.  He’His only mistake – now, and in 2000 – was his timing.  But for dirty politicking and a young man named Rove, McCain would have had a fair shot at the presidency in 2000.  He would also likely have been a fine president: 2000 was a good year for moderation and cross-partisan unity.  But for September 11th, he may even have had a shot at Bush’s second term, or a prestigious place in his administration: re-nominating Bush at his pre-9/11 ratings would have been suicide for the GOP.  And today, but for the Bush years, the Republican Party’s political culture may have allowed a moderate to exist, and not demanded that their candidate pander to and pretend to like the far-right.  Americans may still have had faith in the Republican party, and we may might have been willing to credit a Republican’s promises of moderation.  Today, I suspect we’re a little less willing to make Sandra Day’s mistake.  McCain might have been the right president in years prior, but this, as it always has been for him, is the wrong time.