“The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.”

I feel a bit of sorrow for John McCain.

Whether he fully deserved all of the accolades heaped upon him for his stint as a POW or not, he did, at least, serve his country.

Whether his service was as heroic as he has painted it during this campaign, or whether it was, in fact, made of much lesser metal as portrayed by some other POWs who were held captive along with him, his will to survive must be admired.

Whether or not he dishonored his first wife in his actions leading up to and through his divorce and re-marriage, he is, by and large, a decent human being.

John McCain had a chance to go out a hero. Regardless of whether or not he won the Presidency, John McCain was positioned to be remembered as a war hero who had a reputable career in Congress and who promised to bring honor and honesty to his campaign for President. Even in losing the race, history would have written that he was an honorable American hero.

But now, whether or not he wins the election is largely irrelevant. John McCain has loosed the attack hounds of lies, innuendo and character assassination in his quest for the Presidency. And in doing so, he has so tarnished his hero’s armor to such an extent that no amount of polishing will ever restore it to its former luster.

At his rally on Friday in Lakeville, Minnesota, as he lamely tried to calm his irate supporters as they responded with the emotions his campaign has encouraged, one could almost feel that he was acutely aware of the damage his campaign has done and that he was beginning to regret the path he has chosen. For, while he speaks endlessly about his ability to “reach across the aisle” to find bi-partisan solutions to problems, his campaign’s “guilt by association” mantra and “terrorist” innuendo tactics have so vocalized the basest segment of our society that he has put a rip in the fabric of American decency that he will never be able to heal should he be elected President.

And in doing so, he has now made his opponents wary that the hand that “reaches across the aisle” may, instead of being a hand extended in friendship, be a hand holding a dagger ready to be plunged in the back of the unaware.

The divisiveness John McCain has manufactured cannot be healed in a short while, possibly not even during a full term as President, be that President McCain or President Obama. And this divisiveness will be John McCain’s legacy.

He will now go down in history, not as the war hero he presented when he accepted his party’s nomination, but as an apostle of Karl Rove, whose tactics when managing the Bush campaigns McCain purported to abhor after he, himself, fell victim to the Power of the Lie as taught by Rove. His record in Congress, of which his is justifiably proud, will be but a footnote in the history books; his cherished ability to “reach across the aisle” will be forgotten; and his chastisement of big government will be but a distant echo not heard by future generations.

John McCain’s fall from Grace is of his own making, for he has succumbed to the power of Greed in his desire to be President. In his campaign, he has shed his principles and made the easy choice that “the ends justify the means;” a choice that will leave him riding off into the sunset not as El Cid on a white charger wearing gleaming armor, but as Don Quixote riding a limping, underfed plug horse wearing a tattered makeshift suit of coarse burlap.

And, even though he chose his own path, human decency demands we feel at least a bit of sorrow for John McCain and the passing of the man he might have been.