- March 28th, 2006, 2:33 am
#9487
Interesting choice, but I won't bother to go hear him.
McCain to speak at Liberty graduationhttp://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... 4968&path=
By Ron Brown
rbrown@newsadvance.com
March 28, 2006
U.S. Sen. John McCain - a likely 2008 presidential candidate who once labeled the Rev. Jerry Falwell an “agent of intolerance” - will be Liberty University’s graduation speaker on May 13.
“I was in Washington with him about three months ago,” Falwell said. “We dealt with every difference we have. There are no deal breakers now. But I told him, ‘You have a lot of fence mending to do.’”
Falwell, LU’s chancellor, said McCain, an Arizona Republican, is among the presidential candidates he could support in 2008.
“This is not an endorsement,” Falwell said.
McCain, 69, was out of his Washington office on Monday and could not be reached for comment.
McCain’s visit to the LU campus is, at the very least, an attempt to make peace with conservative Christians prior to the presidential campaign.
While running against then- Gov. George W. Bush in the South Carolina and Virginia primaries in 2000, McCain denounced Falwell and Virginia Beach televangelist Pat Robertson in what was seen as a move to lure more moderate voters to his campaign.
“Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right,” McCain said at the time.
McCain lost the Virginia and South Carolina primaries and Bush won the nomination.
This year, some polls show McCain as the early front-runner for the Republican nomination in the campaign to become Bush’s successor.
Falwell said McCain’s appearance at LU’s graduation is another sign that McCain is wooing evangelical Christians.
“He is in the process of healing the breech with evangelical groups,” Falwell said.
Falwell said McCain has expressed a willingness to support a Federal Marriage Amendment, an issue dear to conservative Christians.
The amendment would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
Christian conservatives, including Falwell, are concerned about efforts by homosexual groups to have civil unions between same-sex partners recognized as marriages. McCain previously has said the matter of defining marriage should be handled by state legislatures, but now concedes that a federal statute may be necessary, Falwell said.
Aside from their political skirmishes, Falwell said McCain is an authentic American hero.
“On this, everybody agrees,” he said.
McCain, a 1958 Naval Academy graduate, was a Navy pilot whose plane was shot down in 1967 over Vietnam. He was captured and imprisoned for 5½-years, mostly in the infamous Hanoi Hilton.
When the North Vietnamese learned his father was the admiral in charge of the Pacific Command, they offered him a chance to go home. McCain, a decorated veteran, instead followed the orders of senior POWs, who said no one would go home unless all went home.
He was finally released in 1973.
He became the Navy’s liaison to the Senate before leaving the Navy in 1981 after obtaining the rank of captain.
He successfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 and won a U.S. Senate seat four years later, following the retirement of U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee in 1964.
After unsuccessfully challenging Bush in the presidential campaign of 2000, McCain supported Bush in his re-election bid in 2004 against fellow Vietnam veteran, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts.
Falwell said McCain could very well be the Republican Party’s best hope in 2008, particularly if Democrats nominate U.S. senator and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York.
“We weren’t opposed to John McCain in 2000,” Falwell said. “We were more supporters of George Bush. But I’m not going to be endorsing anyone until after November’s election.”
Interesting choice, but I won't bother to go hear him.
- By Chippy