Speak not of a victim

The status of Victimhood is very important to the liberal culture. In many ways it is central to the liberal coalition, a requisite tag on the ear those wishing a place at the trough.

Says Drezner:

This leads to a central irony about this campaign. I don't doubt that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have suffered a multitude of small slights in their professional and personal lives because of their gender or race. However, if you think about this as a contest to see who has suffered the greatest because of their identity, it's not even close.

The candidate who has suffered the most in his lifetime is.... John McCain. As an individual, he has paid a much higher price for his identity as an officer in the United States military than Obama or Cinton has individually paid for their race or gender. And there's simply no way to spin it otherwise.

(w/t: Adam C at Redstate)
As individuals, the case is clear: McCain had it far worse and for a far greater cause than either of his opponents.

But to the Inclusive Victims Movement the election particularly this year is about symbolism, not substance. The amount and depth of trial each candidate has faced is not the issue. Hillary and Obama are running as proxies for all women and all blacks, respectively. That neither one of them has done any personal suffering beyond the normal trials we all face is irrelevant, because voters who identify with one or the other of them will impute their own ear tag.

But we are not, or should not be, electing an entire gender or a race to work in the Oval Office. We are electing an individual, a single person on whose life experience we must rely. The symbolism of putting a woman or a black man in the big chair is of no consequence to the world leaders with whom he or she will have to deal.

But life experience has led John McCain to a position of leadership in the Senate, while Hillary merely occupied an office and Obama has yet to do so.

McCain can leverage the progress in Iraq because the surge is a reflection of his stance all along. He knew that in attempting not to look mean and imperial we were trying to pacify a country with far too light a force. Because of that strategic mistake, we allowed Al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Iraq, which they have now all but lost. But that victory has come at great cost, a cost that a President McCain would have understood, a President Hillary Clinton would have run from, and one that a President Obama would have ducked like the other hard questions he never answers.

Because John McCain doesn't see himself as a victim.

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