When I heard that Sen. John McCain had accepted Jerry Falwell’s invitation to deliver the commencement address at Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, I was disappointed.

Previously, McCain had denounced Falwell – along with Pat Robertson, Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton – as “agents of intolerance” who were “corrupting influences” in American politics. But when McCain accepted Falwell’s invitation it seemed that his presidential ambitions had gotten the better of his principles. It seemed as if he was willing to go to Lynchburg to appease Falwell and the religious right as abjectly as a certain medieval German emperor had journeyed barefoot in the snow to Canossa to ask pardon of the Pope.

I was wrong.

Sen. McCain went to Lynchburg this past Saturday, but he did not compromise his principles one bit. Instead, he made an eloquent appeal to good Americans of all political stripes, calling on us to show a decent respect for each other, no matter how deep or how wide the divisions between us may be.

The nub of his speech was this:

“Americans deserve more than tolerance from one another, we deserve each other’s respect, whether we think each other right or wrong in our views, as long as our character and our sincerity merit respect, and as long as we share, for all our differences, for all the noisy debates that enliven our politics, a mutual devotion to the sublime idea that this nation was conceived in – that freedom is the inalienable right of mankind, and in accord with the laws of nature and nature’s Creator.

“We have so much more that unites us than divides us. We need only to look to the enemy who now confronts us, and the benighted ideals to which Islamic extremists pledge allegiance -- their disdain for the rights of Man, their contempt for innocent human life -- to appreciate how much unites us.”

At the end of the speech, Senator McCain cinched his argument with a moving personal anecdote:

“I had a friend once, who, a long time ago, in the passions and resentments of a tumultuous era in our history, I might have considered my enemy. He had come once to the capitol of the country that held me prisoner, that deprived me and my dearest friends of our most basic rights, and that murdered some of us. He came to that place to denounce our country’s involvement in the war that had led us there. His speech was broadcast into our cells. I thought it a grievous wrong then, and I still do.

“A few years later, he had moved temporarily to a kibbutz in Israel. He was there during the Yom Kippur War, when he witnessed the support America provided our beleaguered ally. He saw the huge cargo planes bearing the insignia of the United States Air Force rushing emergency supplies into that country. And he had an epiphany. He had believed America had made a tragic mistake by going to Vietnam, and he still did. He had seen what he believed were his country’s faults, and he still saw them. But he realized he had let his criticism temporarily blind him to his country’s generosity and the goodness that most Americans possess, and he regretted his failing deeply. When he returned to his country he became prominent in Democratic Party politics, and helped elect Bill Clinton President of the United States. He still criticized his government when he thought it wrong, but he never again lost sight of all that unites us.

“We met some years later. He approached me and asked to apologize for the mistake he believed he had made as a young man. Many years had passed since then, and I bore little animosity for anyone because of what they had done or not done during the Vietnam War. It was an easy thing to accept such a decent act, and we moved beyond our old grievance.

“We worked together in an organization dedicated to promoting human rights in the country where he and I had once come for different reasons. I came to admire him for his generosity, his passion for his ideals, for the largeness of his heart, and I realized he had not been my enemy, but my countryman . . . my countryman . . . and later my friend. His friendship honored me. We disagreed over much. Our politics were often opposed, and we argued those disagreements. But we worked together for our shared ideals. We were not always in the right, but we weren’t always in the wrong either, and we defended our beliefs as we had each been given the wisdom to defend them.

“David remained my countryman and my friend, until the day of his death, at the age of forty-seven, when he left a loving wife and three beautiful children, and legions of friends behind him. His country was a better place for his service to her, and I had become a better man for my friendship with him. God bless him.

“And may God bless you, Class of 2006. The world does indeed await you, and humanity is impatient for your service. Take good care of that responsibility. Everything depends upon it.”

It’s just one man’s opinion, but I think Senator McCain touched a deep chord among his countrymen in this moving address. I think Americans are getting tired of slash-and-burn politics. I think they are hungry for the kind of message that Senator McCain has just delivered. If so, his appeal for mutual respect between Americans of all shades of opinion could generate significant support for him in the political season ahead.