Local opinion: What leaders like John McCain understood about the truth

In 2008, at a presidential campaign town hall, a supporter told Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) she didn’t trust then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), and described him as “an Arab,” implying something suspicious. McCain immediately took back the microphone and corrected her. Obama, he said, was “a decent family man,” someone he disagreed with on policy, not someone to be feared.

It was a brief exchange in a long campaign, but it revealed something essential. McCain chose accuracy over advantage. He understood that letting a falsehood linger — especially one rooted in prejudice — might offer a fleeting political benefit at the expense of something deeper: public trust. Loyalty, in that moment, did not mean indulging his side. It meant drawing a line.

That instinct feels rarer today. In a political culture that often rewards outrage and amplification over accuracy, the willingness to correct one’s own side can seem almost unnatural. Yet those moments are often the clearest test of integrity.

There are other examples. Then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden explicitly rejected the liberal slogan “defund the police” during the 2020 campaign, arguing instead for reform, accountability, and investment in public safety. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R-Ga.) firmly rejected pressure to “find votes” in Georgia during the 2020 election aftermath, consistently correcting misinformation about vote counts and election integrity. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) have both publicly acknowledged the reality of climate change and human contribution to it. Doing so put them at odds with more skeptical voices within their party, yet they still advocated for market-based approaches to addressing it. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) has also pushed back at times against absolutist rhetoric on the left, rejecting calls for “open borders” and arguing for reform rather than abolition of agencies like ICE.

None of these choices came without cost. Speaking against your own coalition can invite anger, isolation, and political risk. But that is precisely why such moments matter. They show a willingness to place honesty above convenience and principle above applause.

McCain’s response still resonates because it reflected a standard many Americans instinctively recognize, even if they rarely see it modeled. Leadership is not only about persuasion or partisan victory. It is also about restraint: what a person refuses to say, what they are willing to correct, and what they are prepared to lose to remain truthful.

You do not need the podium of elected office to practice the same principle. It can happen in ordinary conversations: correcting an exaggeration without turning it into a fight, resisting the urge to share information before verifying it, separating shared values from disputed facts, or holding your own side to the same standards of evidence as opponents. It may mean admitting when a favored politician is wrong, refusing to excuse dishonesty simply because it is politically useful, or choosing curiosity over reflexive outrage when speaking with someone you disagree with. These are not dramatic acts, and they rarely attract attention. But practiced consistently, they cultivate something we value in life: trust.

At a time when political incentives often reward sharpness over accuracy and loyalty over honesty, integrity stands out. The real test is whether honesty survives moments of inconvenience and political pressure. What the country needs now is more courage on both sides of the aisle — leaders willing to tell uncomfortable truths, correct their own supporters, and place integrity above partisan advantage.