Prepping to interview novelist Andrew Klavan for Uncommon Knowledge, just now I came across this passage from an article Drew published in City Journal earlier this summer:

[T]his is America, remember: we’re a country of the imagination, a living state of mind. We’re not connected to one another by bloodlines or any depth of native memory. We’re the descendants of an idea that every generation has to learn to hold in its collectiv e consciousness. More than in any other country, it matters in American who we think we are and what we believe we’re doing.

Whatever his policy shortcomings–and we on the Corner have detailed every last one of them, goodness knows–John McCain believes that who we Americans are and what we’re doing in the world are so fundamentally good and noble that he endured six years of imprisonment and torture rather than betray them. Who do we think we are and what do we believe we’re doing? If next week the McCain speechwriting team has the senator address those questions in his acceptance speech, he’ll do fine. Just fine.