The Passion of John McCain or How I Learned How to Stop Worrying and Love Liberty University

This past May, John McCain delivered the commencement speech at Liberty University, the (unacredited) Virginia school founded by, designed by, and probably wet-dreamed over by none other than Jerry Falwell himself. (For an amusing game regarding Lib U, go to this picture here and see how many non-whites you can find.)

Now, I've long thought that Liberty was something of a strange place to consider for higher educational choice, but I understand that some folks want something different out of their college experience. They want the safety of a school that fosters their faith and their system of beliefs, where I was more persuaded by the keggers and the co-eds. Whatever. To each his own. In any case, however, it gives pause to imagine what a student at Liberty would do if confronted with one not of his or her ilk. Liberty offers a wide variety of courses of study, almost all of them similar at least in name to what you would find anywhere else. I personally marvel a little bit at the type of arguments that a Liberty U polysci student would make, but what the hell.

Given it's strict background and ideological foundations, it is understandable that McCain's choice of a commencement speech there would possibly frighten some of us who see him as a viable candidate for the Republican nomination, especially in light of his White Knight characterization from the 2000 election. We lefties like to think that he is at least the one righty who actually understands how terrible the Bush years have been, so when we see him (as we often have of late) cozying up to said president, we get a little nervous.

I would love to see McCain as a candidate, provided that he doesn't jump headfirst into the bushes and start drinking the kool-aid. And so, I understand how freaky it looks to see the once centrist candidate making a bee-line to speak at the University of Intolerance. But look over his speech and I think you'll see something interesting: He's talking about change. Civility was the order of his speech, not culture wars. It was an out-of-season call for peace on earth and goodwill towards men, and hopefully, women.

We as liberals cannot afford to throw our hands up in the air whenever McCain talks to the people we believe to be wackos. Why not? Because they're certainly not going to let us in there to talk to them, so why not choose the guy who will and will do it correctly? It does no good to preach to the choir. The congregation are the ones in need. McCain isn't selling out his convictions just because he chose to speak to the ultra-right. He's telling them the lessons that, frankly, they need to hear.

So what do we take out of this? Lesson #1) Don't freak out. McCain isn't crazy and if anything he's doing some good talking sense to a crowd that probably won't hear it from us. Lesson #2) We are just as crazy if we as liberals believe that we aren't in need of similar intervention from time to time.

I'm not saying that I endorse John McCain for president. It will still take some work for him to convince me that just because he would be in office, the Republican machine that has done such a bang-up job running the world these past six years won't be. I am saying that I am no longer as worried about him finding his way to the Dark Side as I used to be.