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It is said that in 1918, British fliers flew over the funeral of Baron von Richthofen and dropped a wreath to honor a foe who was, nevertheless, a fine example of a man. It is in that spirit that I offer this thread in honor of Barry Goldwater.
There are few public figures in my lifetime with whom I disagreed more as a public figure than Senator Goldwater. There are also few I have admired more as a man.
Goldwater was wrong about a number of things. He was wrong about the Vietnam War. He ran in 1964 on a platform of escalating the war. He was soundly defeated and President Johnson went on to escalate the war, much as Goldwater would have, leaving it to history to expose the folly of the plan. Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, it would be wrong to call Goldwater a racist. He wasn't. He believed the act would do more harm than good; he believed that the act allowed the federal government to assume power over the states not granted by the constitution. History again has proved that Goldwater wrong in this, but the man's simple honesty stands out.
Goldwater the man chose his friends not from how much they agreed with his political ideology, but by how honorable he felt them to be. He counted among his friends Robert A. Taft, Hubert Humphrey and Jack Kennedy. He couldn't stand either Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon, both of whom he thought consummate liars. If there's an ideological pattern in that, I fail to see it. For Goldwater, a man known to hold firm opinions, there was nothing wrong with a man just because disagreed with him; Goldwater would always let others know where he stood, but respected the views of others nevertheless.
Barry Goldwater is often regarded as the father of modern Republican conservatism. There is much truth in that. However, Goldwater was a much different and much better man than many of today's congressional leaders. Imagine Tom Delay even trusting a Republican who would prefer the private company of Democrats because he honors them as honest men to a Republican president whom he thinks a liar.
Goldwater's honesty made him, in his time, the liberal's favorite conservative. During the unfolding of the Watergate scandal, all eyes were on Goldwater. His defection from the Nixon loyalists would spell doom for the besieged President. Goldwater kept his own counsel for many months. However, when the time came for Republicans to tell the President he could not survive, it was Goldwater who led the delegation from Capitol Hill to the White House to deliver the bad news to Nixon.
One of my co-workers, when a young man, once worked at a filling station in Phoenix, Arizona. One day he was working with another attendant, who took a regularly scheduled break just before it seemed every car in town drove in, leaving the young attendant to wait on costumers by himself (keep in mind that service stations in those days were typically full service). Who should come driving up while all hell is breaking loose but Barry Goldwater? He was a United States Senator, the owner of a large department store, one of the wealthiest men in Arizona, a man who was almost President of the United States and he was waiting for his gas and oil check. How does such an important man react to being in a situation where he is waiting to be served in a gas station with one overwhelmed attendant? Goldwater surmised the situation, got out of his car and started pumping his own gas. When he did, so did several other customers. The young attendant expressed his gratitude to Senator Goldwater for demonstrating that kind of leadership in that kind of situation that day.
Goldwater passed away in 1998.
So, today, let us celebrate the life of a man with whom we could sharply disagree and greatly admire at the same time. Barry Goldwater would have been 95 today.
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