U.S. Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign today released a new web ad. The ad, entitled “American Heroes,” tells the story of John McCain’s Episcopal High School teacher and football coach, William B. Ravenel, who had a profound impact on his life. The ad details the honor code John McCain has faithfully lived his life by, taught first by his parents and reinforced by Mr. Ravenal in high school.

What the hell?  The John McCain campaign is telling the story of how a high school teacher inspired him?  Are we also going to be touting history in Scouting?  As for the Honor Code:

ANNCR: Our heroes help tell the story of America .
We know them well.
They’ve been inventors, athletes, rock-stars and presidents
They inspire us to dream.
Make the right choices.
Live up to their example.
But it’s not always the famous who inspire us.
Sometimes the heroes we need are right in front of us.
For John Mccain, one of his heroes was in the front of his high school classroom.
William B. Ravenel was that hero.
He was the English teacher and football coach who inspired students to live the honor code.“I shall not lie
I shall not cheat
I shall not steal
And I shall turn in the student who does.”
The teacher who believed in exoneration and redemption.
When one of John McCain’s classmates violated the rules and admitted to the infraction.Yes.  That’s what we need in this country.  An Honor Code.  The rules and by-ways of a Military Academy enforced into our general civilian life.  If you spot your neighbor smoking some pot, minding his own business mind you, Call the Police now.  Because that’s the Honorable thing to do.  Which is not an endorsement of the stupidity from the opposite extreme, but Come On!  I remember my first grade teacher regualarly reading these morality stories to the class, and the only one I can recall was one whose message was an anti-Tattling message, which from the teachers’ perspective ran round to “We don’t need to know every single piddling little thing.”

There is in the latest issue of The American Prospect features a cover article about the current stripped down Republican campaign theme: “The Candidate for Real Americans”, which strikes me as the basic messaging of the Republican Party — for good times and bad and with good and bad subtexts — since basically its inception, and perhaps even with some odd Whig and “Anti-Freemason” antecedents — when they were saving the Union.  The Democratic Party, you understand, is the Party of a collection of minority groups somewhat alienated from the American experience — Catholics and immigrants and eventually negroes and those nose-thumbing Intellectuals and the defeated South and those danged hyphens– while Theodore Roosevelt is 100 percent pure Americanism.  One thing the party in this argument is that only two Democrats have won more than 51 percent of the vote since 1860 where the Republicans have multiple landslides.  What they have going against them is the argument against that there collection of minorities trends toward a racist attack and frustration at black “Block Voting” and an anti-intellectualism which wraps itself around the Flag.

But then again… the argument for the moment comes down to the vagaries of Barack Obama’s background, his ethnicity (um… he’s black, in case you haven’t noticed), and his lack of flag pins.  Which is a roughly of enforcement where that precious Honor Code goes haywire in determing the “Real American”.

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