The McCain funeral
First let me just say that I didn’t watch it, nor have I watched clips of the proceedings.
I didn’t watch the funeral because listening to speech after speech is of no interest to me and I rarely do it unless the occasion is ultra-important. I also am quite familiar with the basics of the life of John McCain, having written about him many, many, many times.
But apparently this funeral turned into an anti-Trump rally. A bipartisan anti-Trump rally, I might add.
Well, McCain himself was a big fan of bipartisanship, so I suppose it’s fitting. And McCain and his family had a bona fide reason to hate President Trump:
“He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
The remarks, which came after days of back-and-forth between McCain and Trump, were met with scattered boos.
Characteristically, Trump later denied the implications of what he had said:
At a press availability following his remarks, Trump denied saying that McCain isn’t a war hero and said, “If somebody’s a prisoner, I consider them a war hero.”
He also continued his attacks on the Arizona senator, saying, “I think John McCain’s done very little for the veterans. I’m very disappointed in John McCain.”
I’ve already written my own opinion on McCain’s heroism (short version: I would call him a hero). But I can certainly understand why the McCains would detest Trump.
Nor is it a mystery why the Bushes would feel likewise. I described the animus and its origins here.
So none of this should be a surprise, and although it wasn’t a given that it would take the form of speeches at McCain’s funeral, it certainly is in line with the history.
The exclusion of Sarah Palin is a bit more puzzling, although the article I just linked to says that the request that Palin stay away came from McCain’s widow. My only theory about the treatment of Palin—who reportedly has never said an unkind word of McCain—is that Palin’s style was too close to Trump’s for comfort. Perhaps ex post facto she was considered a sort of forerunner, a portent of Trumpy things to come, and thus became persona non grata.
And why on earth would I care how the MSM covers the occasion? They loved McCain when it was politically expedient to do so, and they hated him when that was politically expedient, so for those reasons (and so many more) they can hardly be considered a fair and objective way to look at the proceedings.
And then there’s one of the final reasons that many on the right feel a great deal of anger at McCain, his July 2017 vote against so-called “skinny repeal” of Obamacare:
…[McCain] stunned his party when the final vote was at hand early Friday when he voted “no” and killed the legislation.
In the process, the maverick dealt what looks like the death blow to the Republican Party’s seven-year quest to get rid of President Barack Obama’s 2010 health law.
Along with McCain, GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined Democrats in the dramatic 51-49 vote rejecting the bill despite intense pressure from the White House…
Before voting, McCain would not say how he would vote, but told reporters to “wait for the show” as he arrived in the Senate chamber.
Note that last paragraph. It was not just the vote itself that rankled—although that was bad enough, considering how long and hard the GOP had campaigned for the repeal (whether you think they were serious or not), and the fact that McCain himself had campaigned in 2016 on a promise to repeal Obamacare [written in September of 2017):
McCain did run [in 2016], as Trump is drumming, on a strong repeal-and-replace platform. In fact, it was the principal distinction he drew with his Democratic opponent, Ann Kirkpatrick. He would vote to repeal Obamacare. She would not.
McCain did not say that he would vote to repeal Obamacare, provided Democrats agreed. If he had, his Republican primary with Kelli Ward might have turned out differently.
McCain now says that Democrats made a mistake in passing Obamacare on a partisan basis, and that Republicans shouldn’t undo it on a similarly partisan basis. But that’s the equivalent of a Brezhnev doctrine on domestic policy. Democrats can enact legislation on a partisan basis. But Republicans can undo it only if Democrats agree.
McCain is undoubtedly correct that bipartisan policy changes are more enduring. But when one side acts unilaterally, it shouldn’t get a veto when the other side attempts to undo it.
More importantly, there is no bipartisan agreement possible to repeal and replace Obamacare, as McCain vowed to do. That’s because there is no Democrat willing to agree to the first step, repeal.
It was not just the complete impracticability of McCain’s stand, its divorce from political reality, that rankled, although that was the major thing (I wrote about it here). It was also the seeming hypocrisy of his campaign promises vs. his later actions, as well as the theatricality of failing to reveal his vote in advance and telling reporters to “wait for the show.”
These things did seem characteristic of McCain, at least some part of McCain, although somewhat exaggerated. But I have one caveat to offer when thinking about this episode, and that’s the fact that McCain had already been diagnosed with a glioblastoma and had undergone a three to four hour brain surgery about two weeks prior to the vote. Though widely reported to not be suffering from any cognitive decline, this is part of what led to his diagnosis:
He also told his doctor he had, at times, felt foggy and not as sharp as he typically is. In addition, he reported having intermittent double vision. These symptoms and doctor intuition prompted a CT scan.
A brain tumor can affect a person in global and obvious ways or in subtle ones. Perhaps McCain’s tendency towards what, for want of a better word, we’ll call maverickyness was accentuated by brain changes accompanying both his illness and his surgery. So personally, I think that all the decisions he made post-brain-tumor should have an asterisk next to them.
RIP, John McCain.
[NOTE: On a somewhat different topic: remember the brouhaha about McCain’s advanced age when he ran in 2008? I predicted at the time that it was highly likely he’d live past the two terms he might have served as president, and that turned out to have been correct. The actuarial tables said he’d live to about 83 or 84, and although he didn’t make that, he died just four days short of his 82nd birthday. What’s more, his mother—who was very elderly but spry during the 2008 campaign—is still alive at the age of 106 and looking beautiful.]
John McCain was a great war hero and a petty, vindictive, somewhat stupid human.
The dolts who used his funeral as an opportunity to lash out at Trump do not have the benefit of being great war heros. It was such a revolting bipartisan display.
That Palin was not invited is understandable, that she was told to stay away seems a little unnecessary, that we heard about it suggests more vindictiveness than is graceful around a funeral. Does that hint at what kind of people the McCains were/are?
1. The people present at a funeral should be those who knew the deceased face-to-face and weren’t manifest enemies. The funeral should consist of prayers for the deceased as a person.
2. And, while we’re at it, confine the eulogies to wakes attended by those closest the deceased.
3. Funerals at the Washington Cathedral should be held for people who attend Holy Communion at the Washington Cathedral or have a history of having done so. (E.g. Mrs. So-and-So who did so until she retired to Sarasota).
4. State funerals are for members of the Royal Family, or for a quondam head of state, or for a person of exceptional import in the life of a nation (say, Gen. George Marshall).
5. Public funerals are for someone who has a public (e.g. Aretha Franklin or Walter Cronkite), and then only at the discretion of the family.
John McCain should have resigned from the Senate upon the diagnosis of the tumor. Glioblastoma seldom has a good outcome and efforts at treatment are incapacitating for the patient, especially when they are expected to make decisions with the potential of impacting hundreds of millions of people. He should have stepped down so the governor could appoint someone to represent Arizona in the Senate. He selfishly chose not to.
The smart money says the stilettos thrust into Gov. Palin were wielded by the MeanGirl John McCain married and the MeanGirl he sired.
That Palin was not invited is understandable,
Why is it ‘understandable’? It’s a public funeral and there have been few people as consequential in McCain’s public career as was she. Make it family and personal friends or make it public. If you make it public, make it classy. Cindy and Meghan be a pair of nasty canines.
John McCain should have resigned from the Senate upon the diagnosis of the tumor.
Then, or in January when he left Washington, or the first week of June, when the legal requirement that a special election be held passed.
In truth, like many members of Congress, his sell-by date had long since been passed. He should have retired no later than seven years ago.
NEO’s “short version: I would call him a hero”
My short version: That’s total nonsense.
I’ll vacate my preferred personal reticence and voice the fact I’m an Army vet who spent a long year with an Infantry unit in VN. I have a CIB, a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, 4 Bronze stars and an Air Medal…I feel no sympathy or suasion from those so eager to bandy the word “Hero” about like they say ‘Thanks for your service’, or ‘Have a nice day’. McCain’s record as a man is anything but ‘heroic’. Spoiled son of Admirals who graduated in the bottom 5 of his class with a shabby record of personal behavior – w/o his family’s name/rank, he would have been kicked out. He (arguably) proceeded the to crash 3-4 aircraft as a pilot and pulled a nut-job treetop flight in Italy that would have courtmartialed the son of ‘nobody’. He was a very suspect participant in a carrier ‘fire’ incident that resulted in the death/injury of hundreds of sailors. Eventually he was shot down over N. Vietnam – some say he was breaking combat flight rules and flying too low. Taken prisoner, he became 1 of approx 600 American POWs – how many have you ever heard going around preening themselves as heros? He was “tortured”? He had plenty of company. McCain himself knew he was not a hero even while some others were – he was actually closer to a ‘failure’ and he spent many post-war years and much hired PR-Writer work to redesign his reality to better suit his ambition and narcissist nature. But a lot of people, like yourself, happily and mindlessly bought in.
Shall we just skip how he abandoned his first wife who waited for him for so long? Or his millionaire second wife who spent so much time alone while ‘McCain was just being McCain’?
He was a narcissistic, nasty and selfish individual who constantly sold versions of himself to some equally self-serving journalist or Pol….he was a man who spent YEARS with a hired writer in charge of writing ‘books’ to fuel the invented McCain ‘story’….including inventing the script for his very own funeral – too bad it seems to have back-fired as much as it worked. Which is another proof that he was also totally inept as a Senator in actually accomplish any actual THING. – the McCain political record is that of a Loser., the only accomplishment being keeping his own ass on the public payroll for so long.
John McCain, so much ado about nothing.
Accidentally caught just a few minutes of the endless weeping, wailing, and slobbering over McCain and then turned the TV off, after catching a glimpse of his daughter Megan, spittle spraying, as she shrieked her (and her father’s ) hatred for Trump into the microphone.
It’s pretty clear that this way over the top week of nonstop coverage–far in excess of the coverage that has been given to even Presidential funerals in the past–is meant to be the MSM’s and the Left’s thumb in Trump’s eye.
It wasn’t a funeral so much as it was a hatefest, aimed at Trump, with all of his enemies piling on–veiled ( and not so) insult after insult–as dignity, solemnity, and decorum were simply ignored.
I really felt sorry for Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, who attended, and had to sit there while the abuse of Trump showered down upon them. Frankly, I don’t know why they just didn’t get up and walk out, rather than take that abuse.
I remember another scene, years ago at one of the Correspondent’s Dinners, which Trump himself attended, when the speaker made fun of Trump and his Presidential aspirations, calling them a “joke,” as the audience members looked at Trump and laughed. I ‘ve often wondered if that was the day that Trump decided to actively pursue the Presidency, and had the last laugh.
I wonder what this funeral’s abuse of Trump will spawn this time?
BTW: The other day watched again the tape of McCain striding up to the well of the Senate, and very publicly and dramatically giving thumbs down to the bill to kill Obamacare that could only pass if he voted yes–a yes vote he had promised voters he would make, if they just elected him.
The idea that McCain did this purely because he hated Trump, and wanted to deny him this victory, seems pretty likely to me.
That in giving this bill the thumbs down McCain also guaranteed that millions of people would have to continue to pay high premiums for inadequate health care, and perhaps for several years to come, apparently made no difference to McCain.
So spare me the blather about how much of a “Hero” McCain was.
Art Deco on September 3, 2018 at 2:05 pm at 2:05 pm said:
John McCain should have resigned from the Senate upon the diagnosis of the tumor.
Then, or in January when he left Washington, or the first week of June, when the legal requirement that a special election be held passed.
In truth, like many members of Congress, his sell-by date had long since been passed. He should have retired no later than seven years ago.
* * *
I agree with all of this (the one thing my mother and I agreed on was a strong distaste for McCain, but I voted for him in 2008 and she voted for his BFF Obama).
However, I went back through some of the links Neo supplied and I think this commenter at BuzzFeed nailed the reason he did not resign — he had a mission in the ACA Repeal drama that required some finesse and strategy.
The comments are … interesting on the whole. Although the leftists there appreciated his vote, they despised him for it as much at the conservatives did.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/back-and-to-the-left
Scroll through the article and watch the Chamber in action — the author calls it a Renaissance painting, and he is quite correct.
COMMENTS:
Shannon Michelle
So Collins and Murkowski have been standing strong this entire time, being villified by the men of their own party, but McCain strolls in and now he’s the Maverick hero again? FFS. Don’t get me wrong I’m glad he voted the way he did, but Collins and Murkowski deserve to be hailed as heroes. The White House threatened to punish a whole state because Murkowski refused to bend to party lines, instead doing what was right. She’s a hero.
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Joe Baumann
No kidding. I’m a bleed-blue Democrat and I have an incredible amount of respect for both of those women especially for all the flack they’ve taken for not falling in line with their party.
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Ella Meshke
Not to mention the disrespect and threats Senator Murkowski is facing from some of her own constituents. I don’t live in Maine, but I’d imagine a similar story is true for Senator Collins. These women are brave and doing what they believe is right. A lot of men in their party could learn a thing or two from them.
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Alexis Thompson
So i was told that the reason he hadnt reviously voted no was because if he did then the republicans would be allowed to fix and vote on the bill again in a few days. However by him voting yes and then shooting it down here they have to wait an additional year before the republicans can attempt again. I heard it mentioned on a couple news/political outlets and if thats why he did it that way, its pretty genius, but im just repeating what i heard from political experts (i could be wrong of course)
However i completely agree that Collins and Murkowski are heroes. Myself and many others are indebted to them for years to come.
I watched an hour or so of the funeral in the Washington Cathedral. It was so evident that the attendees were all the Washington establishment, the elite, the Uniparty, the progressives and RINOS that have failed the common citizens for the last 30 years.
It gave them a great sense of comfort to speak the praises of John McCain while using passive aggressive language to insult President Trump. These are the major denizens of the Swamp who care little for the common men and women of this nation. The Swamp creatures are doing okay . They’ve got their piece of the pie – too bad about all the “little people.” They’ll tell us all how to live and we should be grateful.
Anyone who watched that spectacle and didn’t understand what they were seeing is part of the problem.
It’s ironic to think about the way the MSM treated McCain over the years. When he was useful and being a “maverick” in his party, they praised him When he was trying to win the Presidency, they attacked him unmercifully. The MSM’s attack on his Veep choice, Sarah Palin, set a new record for viciousness, yet he never fought back, never stood up to them. HE should have welcomed a brawler who isn’t afraid of the MSM. But no, he could not abide someone who didn’t praise his record as a POW. I can only assume that his last six months of life were spent, not so much in appreciation of his friends and family, but in carefully planning his last act of vengeance. How sad.
His funeral was Wellstoned. I think that’s how he’d have liked it to be.
I’ve been reading some more negatives about McCain. About a week or so before Trump’s first attack, McCain criticized him for planning to stir up the crazies at an Arizona rally. Then there was the time he criticized Tea Partiers as wacko birds. Another was his failure to get involved with the VA scandal in Arizona.
Somehow, he seemed to be more interested in preserving his honor and proclaiming his principles than about getting to know and work normal people. He wanted to tell us what our ideals should be.
I also think he liked hawkish talk but didn’t give much thought to how to negotiate with foes. Just because he saw Putin as KGB doesn’t say a thing about how he would have dealt with him.
As to Meghan’s statement, what did she have to say about Andrew Cuomo’s “America was never great”?
One last thing: How much humility does a man have when he plans a week-lomg memorial?
Bipartisan and media agreement that Trump sux.
It’s not a good look, quite juvenile really, especially given that decades of venom spit at each other and by the media as well. And then at the end, solemn speeches in hushed venue accompanied by the muffled sobbing of the few who really loved him surrounded by men in uniforms and bearing crosses.
You can virtually see them all planning how they’re going to top this.
Anyway, it’s the Wellstone funeral encore and political sanctimony in church does not play well in the rest of America. (Most of it, anyway.)
Fully agree that part of the dreadful aspect of this funeral has been the State Funeral nature of it and that it took over a week and occurred in multiple venues. The Arizona memorial with a decent and dignified family and friends graveside ceremony in Arlington should have sufficed. Now we have precedent for Senators that the Presidents are going to have to out do. Well, Carter won’t but you KNOW Clinton and Obama will.
Also: If only the guys who want me to believe that 5 1/2 years in a Vietnamese prison does not a hero make weren’t so petty and vindictive sounding. Clearly nobody liked or respected the guy unless it was politically expedient. That’s not the point.
The prayers and hymns of a novus ordo Mass take just shy of 40 minutes. I’ve forgotten, but I seem to recall an Episcopal Holy Communion is somewhat longer due to more and better music. Barack Obama took 19 minutes to deliver a eulogy to a man he’d met just a few times. His amanuensis produced a eulogy 2,000 words long and he then distended the delivery by speaking at a pace 1/3 slower than an ordinary public speaker. The eulogy had, as you might expect, 20 separate uses of the first-person singular. Enough about you….
Here is Spenngler’s take:
http://www.atimes.com/article/a-funeral-for-a-world-that-never-was/
I do disagree with him on one point. Bush didn’t go in to Iraq simply to bring democracy. Saddam was violating on no fly zones, hoarding WMD, and as we later found bribing the UN and others with oil for food money. With the do gooders like Hans Blix negotiating for the UN, the US would have continued to be blamed for all of Iraq’s problems. I think the peace and democracy talk from Bush was a attempt to offer an alternative to the Iraqis. After the surge, it started to work.
One of Spengler’s points was McCain’s position on Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood. I wasn’t aware of that.
The Arizona memorial with a decent and dignified family and friends graveside ceremony in Arlington should have sufficed.
I think he is due to be buried in Annapolis. Arizona has been the locus of Cindy’s family. His home was the Navy until age 44 and then Washington from age 46. A couple of the kids live in Arizona, but the other 5 are all over the place – two in the service, one on the Virginia Tidewater, one in Milwaukee, and one in Washington. The previous Mrs. McCain lives on the Tidewater. Washington was the right place for the requiem. Cindy’s associated with a Baptist congregation in Phoenix, so a memorial service there was appropriate.
Bush didn’t go in to Iraq simply to bring democracy.
Of course not, but palaeo types and alt-right types need their emotional validation from somewhere, so they traffick in these fictions. Politicians make decisions under conditions of uncertainty and Bush had a trilemma: leave the sanctions on (which Big Consciences were assuring us were generating a 6-figure count of excess deaths each year), remove the sanctions and allow Iraq to do what it felt like, or eject the government. The costs of the latter are palpable to you because that is the tack we took. Except, of course, they lie about the situation in Iraq: the predominantly Kurdish and Shi’ite provinces are quiet and the the condition of their inhabitants is much improved. The other 40-50% of the population lives in provinces with a critical mass of Sunnis fouling their own nest because they fancy someone took something from them properly theirs. Of course, palaeos and alt-right types side with the Sunnis because, like the red haze left, they pick the more disgusting side in any conflict you can imagine. Ask one of these characters if they’d prefer to be dealing with Uday or Qusay right now and watch the frenzy begin.
It was so evident that the attendees were all the Washington establishment, the elite, the Uniparty, the progressives and RINOS that have failed the common citizens for the last 30 years.
In fairness, the people he worked with every day were other politicians, electoral and non-electoral. You expect to see someone’s co-workers and business associates at a funeral. (Interestingly, Steven Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace were among those Cindy told to stay away. Hmmm…).
If the object of all these services was to celebrate McCains’s life they failed, because the only thing that is going to really be remembered is how politicized this week worth of events was.
The clips you are going to see in the future are mostly, if not all, going to be of the most memorable thing that occurred, people trashing Trump.
Wellstone’s funeral played out in a similar way, and what is it remembered for today? Wellstone’s life and accomplishments, or how much of a Democrat political rally it turned out to be?
I’m gonna go with gg6 on this one…
gg6 and John Guilfoyle:
By calling him a hero I was referring to his Vietnam war years, and you can only understand why I called him a hero, and in what sense I called him a hero, if you followed the link in the post to the words “my own opinion.” This is the link.
Neo…with all due respect for you & the highest admiration & thankfulness for our men & women in military service…1000s of soldiers, sailors, airmen & marines did everything Mr McCain did & they did it without the cotton-wool wrapper of “admiral McCain’s son” or the accolades he seemed to attract. Without that last name, he would have been bounced out early on & likely a desk commander nowhere near combat aircraft or a flight deck on a carrier.
Many volunteered for combat & dangerous missions. 1000s died in combat. 100s were in POW camps. He was one among many & distinguished only because of his name & his survival.
His personal life & political career evidenced repeated self-serving moral failures. His last living deeds were to lie to his constituents, and give the finger to those who could have helped him most. Spiteful. Petty. Arrogant. Vindictive.
Even in death.
And everyone who used his funeral to dig the claws into the President…
I’ve got a finger for you.
The media loved McCain as an opponent for Obama, they pushed him even which way and he received the nomination. He was the ideal lackluster to shoo in a goofy Dem with a funny name and not record to speak of.
Then the McCain an party pulled in an interesting good looking Governor from Alaska who had a decent run in politics, Sarah made thing interesting until she suddenly caught fire and energized the race for president. Lot of people loved her so the media went to work on Sarah and McCain’s race for president, McCain went from no chance at all to maybe kid of interesting and I think if he had gone full out fighting hard with hard questions about his opponent and been a fighter teaming up with his VP he might have had a chance but that never happened.
Most of his life McCain, the self centered show off, enjoyed being the one who was recognized for being the self centered jerk that he was and saying “NO” when he could have been a valuable part of the senate. I do think he got himself in a pickle when he crashed his last jet and he went through some hard stuff including some very painful dislocating shoulders that would have been rough for every person and then when he finally returned back to the USA he played that up, every day, in every way and we bought it, hook, line and sinker. It was not a good deal to buy into his tale of woe and hardship and now he has done the final “Middle Finger” to the Republican party and that just reenforces the fact that he is a jerk, never a real Republican, just a ride along.
Good old John McCain might just have done a great deal of good for conservatives showing his true colors and he might have aided the conservative turn to this fall most everywhere there are people who are tired of electing disappointments.
I am not sorry to say good riddance and so long and glad you moved on to McCain so now they can elect a person who will vote with the party that elected McCain. How great will it be to seat another Supreme before the elections this fall?
Having been a frustrated constituent of his for a long time, I’m not surprised at all by any of the sideshow. (Not that I watched any of it; I knew better than to bother. The reporting confirmed all my suspicions.).
When he first set foot in the senate, I thought highly of him. That lasted exactly one term. Once he got into the “club”, things changed fast. He knew he could use the establishment side of the AZ republican party to his advantage, and did so repeatedly. He also knew that he could use the small but vocal far-left that’s long been present in AZ politics as a voter intimidation tool as well. Both of those things coupled with a self-serving ego made him into what the entire country now recognizes.
Worse, I believe he was a key reason that Flake ended up such a disappointment so fast. He was my district rep prior to that; when I called his office, I wouldn’t always get the answer I wanted, but I could never argue with the principle given. I was the most enthusiastic supporter of his going to the senate, and that lasted all of maybe 18 months. At least Flake was smart enough to figure out how badly he’d stepped in it instead of trying to run again.
(Now, maybe I should use these 2 guys as examples of the folly of the seventeenth amendment, but, that’s a topic for another day.)
The time he spent as a POW would have to have been a truly awful experience. I wouldn’t wish that kind of hell on anyone. Just the same, that POW experience absolutely cannot legitimize a legacy of spiteful, self-serving politics, right on down to refusing to relinquish a seat even though he knew he was ill, and so could not reasonably carry on with the responsibilities of the job. Typical McCain, right down to the very bitter end.
This surprised none of us who watched him in frustration all these years. Arizona deserves better.
How many people really watched the funeral activities? I dislike funerals, wouldn’t want to watch anything related to one, don’t like going to them, and would be happy to miss my own.
Snow on Pine – I think Ivanka and Jared performed admirably. I’m sure the time they spent getting ready beforehand was spent in dread. If they had walked out, that would be touted as ‘thin skin’. They couldn’t win. I saw a picture of them during the unpleasantness with the caption suggesting that they looked uncomfortable. Maybe, but everyone else in the picture looked the same way!
~~
A left friend proudly shared a New Yorker article on FB. “John McCain’s Funeral Was the Biggest Resistance Meeting Yet”
People have gone stark raving mad.
expat on September 3, 2018 at 4:42 pm at 4:42 pm said:
I’ve been reading some more negatives about McCain. About a week or so before Trump’s first attack, McCain criticized him for planning to stir up the crazies at an Arizona rally. Then there was the time he criticized Tea Partiers as wacko birds. Another was his failure to get involved with the VA scandal in Arizona.
Somehow, he seemed to be more interested in preserving his honor and proclaiming his principles than about getting to know and work normal people. He wanted to tell us what our ideals should be.
* * *
From Neo’s older post on McCain (the substance of lots of comments there are reprised on today’s post) – emphasis added, otherwise unchanged.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2017/07/21/heroes-military-and-otherwise-the-case-of-john-mccain/#comment-2235391
“J.J. on July 21, 2017 at 11:37 pm at 11:37 pm said:
Trump’s assertion about McCain not being a hero. Here’s the whole conversation.
Frank Luntz – QUESTION: “John McCain, a war hero, five and a half years as a prisoner of war and you called him a “dummy.”
Is that appropriate in running for president?”
DONALD TRUMP: “I know him too well, that is the problem. Let’s take John McCain. I’m in Phoenix, we have a meeting that is going to have 500 people at the Biltmore Hotel. We get a call from the hotel, it is turmoil, thousands and thousands of people are showing up, four days before they’re pitching tents.
The hotel says we can’t handle this it is going to destroy the hotel, we move it to the convention center, we have 15,000 people. The biggest one ever. Bigger than anybody Bernie Sanders, bigger than anybody and everyone knows it… Wonderful, great Americans…
John McCain goes, oh boy, Trump makes my life difficult, he had fifteen thousand crazies show up, he called them all crazy.
I said, they weren’t crazy, they were great Americans…
I know what a crazy is, I know all about crazy, These weren’t crazy.
So he insulted me, and he insulted everyone in that room. So I said, somebody should run against John McCain — and I supported him for president, I raised a million dollars for the guy, that’s a lot of money.
I supported him, he lost, he let us down. He lost, so I never liked him as much after that. I don’t like losers.”
Luntz – QUESTION: “But he is a war hero, five and a half years as a prisoner of war.”
TRUMP: “He is not a ‘war hero.’ [NOTE THE SCARE QUOTES; I don’t know if they accurately capture Trump’s tone of voice here, but I suspect they do. I submit that this second instance should also read ‘war hero’ in air quotes.]
He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, let me tell you. He’s a war hero. Because he was captured, and I believe perhaps he is a war hero, but right now he’s said a lot of very bad things about a lot of people. [NOTE: this is an instance of his typical back-tracking, as in Charlottesville, “and some of them are good people” — which was literally true, and totally spin-hyped by the media, aided by the GOP.]
So what I said, is: John McCain, I disagree with him, these people aren’t crazy, and, very importantly, I speak the truth,…………”
President (at that time candidate) Trump, like a lot of other Americans, could not separate McCain’s military career from his political career. Frank Luntz was saying you can’t criticize a war hero for political positions or statements. What Trump should have said was that McCain was a war hero, but that doesn’t insulate him from political criticism. They are two different things, but many people conflate a war hero as being a sort of unassailable special human who cannot be criticized. War heroes who go into politics should not be immune to criticism.
Trump is not a buttoned up, careful speaker. He never will be. A lot of people hate that. I get that. I prefer polished, well thought out ideas that don’t create misunderstandings myself. He’s President now and I’m willing to accept that, warts and all.”
* * *
Pretty much how I read the situation at the time, and now.
Check out the news stories about what happened to McCain’s first wife, and how he treated her.
Were his actions in this situation “heroic”?
I can think of few things more destructive to common decency than to turn a funeral into an occasion to spew hate. And to spew that hate while the object of that hate’s children have to sit there and out of common decency endure it is beyond the pale.
The question put to Sen. McCarthy equally applies here; “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
No, they demonstrated that they are utterly lacking in decency.
All is permitted in service of the goal they seek.
There is no lie too big, no issue too important… that the Left will not seek to twist and use to their advantage.
Great Spengler link, expat. He made the full case against the establishment failures that I mentioned in my comment. He predicts this funeral is the precursor to that of the establishment. They have failed but they’re a long way from dead, unfortunately. Let’s all get out and vote in the midterms.
It seems to me that “the measure of a man” is the sum total of what he has said and done– for good or ill–and doing something admirable and, even “heroic” at one time in your life should not give you a free pass for whatever else you do or say during the rest of your life, nor make it illegitimate to critically examine and, where appropriate, criticize you for what you have said and done since that admirable act you performed in the past.
Snow on Pine:
Of course McCain’s treatment of his first wife was not heroic. Nor were many, many things that he did.
I would wager that most people who are heroic in a certain set of circumstances, at a certain time of life, have done plenty of other things that are not heroic.
Rare is the hero who is consistently heroic, although I bet such people exist, as well.
Can someone explain why Meghan McCain has a career in broadcasting?
John Guilfoyle:
I disagree about McCain’s time in captivity.
He did distinguish himself there, according to most of the men who were there with him (see this). And the “special treatment” he got from the North Vietnamese because of being the admiral’s son was not a good kind of attention (see this).
And just because there were 100s or even 1000s in captivity who persevered, that doesn’t make McCain any less of a hero for it. They are all heroes, to my mind.
I’m cool with us looking at the same thing and coming to a different conclusion.
I respect his serving…but even that is coloured by what I believe was preferential treatment by the US Navy because of his family legacy. And everything since returning from Viet Nam confirms for me that he was a less than stellar human being. Which is what his pre-war record would also suggest
“Can someone explain why Meghan McCain has a career in broadcasting?”
Same reason her dad was a Navy pilot; family coattails.
Same reason her dad was a Navy pilot; family coattails.
Really? What are her six siblings getting out of these coattails? How does a member of Congress have an in with the producers of The View (which included, at one time, Donald Trump)? Jenna Bush Hagar’s career in broadcasting I can understand (baseline articulateness, good visuals). Margaret Hoover is cut from the same cloth as Jennifer Rubin: the fake Republican they hire in order to avoid hiring a real one. Meghan McCain looks like a triumph of the undertaker’s art (though might just qualify as a fake Republican).
For some reason, people can’t separate his heroism as a POW and his career as a politician. They are two entirely different things. Being a war hero — and he certainly was, the torture he endured, his refusal to be released before the other prisoners — mark him as a real hero in my book. That says nothing about whether he was a good or successful or even agreeable Congressman.
What Donald Trump said about McCain was inexcusable. What McCain did on numerous occasions was also inexcusable.
John McCain, requiescat in pace.
AD – “Meghan McCain looks like a triumph of the undertaker’s art (though might just qualify as a fake Republican).” That’s tacky…but funny.
It’s that last bit though that counts for the MSM so she can pose as “the conservative” on the View just like her old man posed as a conservative in the Senate.
His healthcare vote is part of explanation of why we got Trump. It wasn’t the only issue he, and most republicans, claimed to believe in but then didn’t pursue when they had the chance. Immigration was another… Not fair to blame Palin. This is on the rest of them.
John McCain, as a POW, did things that were heroic. That being said, hundreds of other POW’s were also heroic. McCain used his former status as a POW to his maximum personal advantage.
Personally, I don’t think he was a nice person. He discarded his first wife rather easily, after a string of extramarital flings, then marrying his second wife, who was younger and much, much wealthier.
He wasn’t so much of a “maverick” as a contrarian A Hole, appearing to vote, at times, out of spite and/or revenge, for maximum effect. A drama Queen.
His funeral, which I understand, he planned much of, really diminished his brand and those who performed in this display of anti-Trump vitriol.
It’s over, may he rest in peace.
If he was a true war hero and a christian he wouldn’t have constantly mentioned his experience as a POW in Vietnam to promote his political career. He would have kept it quiet after all in honor of all the other less fortunate casualties of war as he was indeed the luckiest one among POW. He had a bright future waiting for him at home of course he could wait in his cell with peace of mind, unlike the others who had nothing but despair and homelessness waiting for them.
“Be careful not to perform your righteous acts before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”
I am not a Christian but even I know his heroism has long been exhausted when he had been using that to advance his political career for so long.
Oh, NEO, you get a bit touchy when disagreed with, huh?! That’s not very heroic of you. In any event, the word ‘hero’ is by definition subjective and, yes, NEO, I had already thoroughly read your ‘opinion’ before I posted my own – which, bluntly, I consider more qualified than your rather pathetic wiki and Tampa news citations and professed personal expertise on ‘heroism’. Did you not watch the film of McCain’s burning carrier – where was he then, down below watching on TV? Not to mention, there are those who say he CAUSED that fire-explosion by misuse of his afterburners! In any event, Congrats, you seem right up there with McCain’s paid lifetime hagiographer Mark Salter. Have it your way, and consider him a POW hero who, btw – as you NEVER mention or address – signed confessions in writing and on video for his captors….did Admiral Stockdale or J. Denton ever do that?
God forbid I ever be a POW – who knows how I personally would have behaved? But I did personally serve with a decorated soldier who later became a POW with McCain in Hanoi and here is what he just RECENTLY wrote re McCain:
“…..John McCain, who I reluctantly supported over Obama, was a creation and a false front which propelled him to nearly the most powerful position in the world. That he became a ‘hero above all others’ was a crime against military good order and discipline simply because it was not true. Only another false creation Mr Obama could force me reluctantly into his corner. Neither were made of the personality ‘right stuff ‘ of which every great leader must be made.
…. In my world only reality and not the propaganda driven false front can even survive let alone flourish……John McCain was the least of us propelled to false greatness and all the speeches and programming will not bring back the false front he was little more than a poster-boy for.
Welcome to the real world dear where true greatness is more than a false cloak placed on the shoulders of the undeserving. REALITY IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT. ”
Amen, I say.
Hey, NEO and some others, you still want a “hero”? Here’s some more detail on the J. Denton I mention earlier. Read it and understand what ‘heroic’ really means…McCain, poseur as he was, even claimed Denton as his “MENTOR”…Ha, how pathetic!
“….Denton was most famous for spending seven years and seven months as a Vietnam War POW after his plane was shot down during a bombing mission from the aircraft carrier USS Independence in 1965. Imprisoned in brutal conditions in and around Hanoi, Denton encouraged fellow American prisoners to resist their North Vietnamese captors.
American POWs were sometimes paraded in propaganda films and in 1966, the captive Denton was interviewed for such a film – it later aired on U.S. television – apparently in the hope that he would denounce the U.S. war policy.
“Well, I don’t know what is happening,” he told his interviewer. “But, whatever the position of my government is, I support it fully. And whatever the position of my government is, I believe in it – yes, sir. I’m a member of that government and it is my job to support it. And I will as long as I live.”
During the interview, he pretended to have light sensitivity that caused him to blink his eyes. What he was actually doing was blinking in Morse Code to spell out “t-o-r-t-u-r-e.”
Denton said later his torture increased after the interview was aired. He spent four years in solitary confinement, including two years in a cell the size of a refrigerator. He was 41 when he was captured and 48 when released……
He was among the first U.S. POWs released by the North Vietnamese in February 1973 under the Paris Peace Accords.
‘PROFOUNDLY GRATEFUL’
“We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances,” Denton said after he stepped off the first plane to arrive at a U.S. base in the Philippines. “We are profoundly grateful to our commander in chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America.”
………. John McCain of Arizona, another former Vietnam War POW who went on to leave his mark in U.S. politics, recalled Denton as “my friend and mentor.”
“As a senior ranking officer in prison, Admiral Denton’s leadership inspired us to persevere, and to resist our captors, in ways we never would have on our own. He endured unspeakable pain and suffering because of his steadfast adherence to our code of conduct,” McCain said in a statement on Friday.
Yes, almost unbelievably, John McCain – the guy who signed/filmed a “confession to war crimes” – describes himself as “INSPIRED”. What a complete and shameless phony John McCain was.
gg6:
Perhaps you’re projecting your own touchiness onto others. You wrote, as a starter:
Not a great way to start a discussion, I’d say: the all-CAPS for my name, and the opening salvo of “total nonsense.”
My reply to you (and I reproduce it in its entirety) was this:
Note that I was completely polite. My suggestion that people couldn’t understand why I had called McCain a hero unless those people followed the link I had already given (and gave again) was merely an attempt to be helpful, in case you hadn’t already read the link (people often don’t, I’ve discovered). So I provided the link again to spare you the trouble of going back to the post to find it, in case you hadn’t read the link before.
Here’s your response:
Who’s the touchy one?
I have no professed personal expertise on heroism. If you really did read the post I wrote on McCain and heroism, you would see that I claim no special expertise.
But I do have an opinion, as do you. My blog is a vehicle for my opinions. And I don’t aim to provide a vehicle for trolls.
Thomas:
McCain’s objectionable healthcare vote occurred after Trump was already president.
expat on September 3, 2018 at 5:22 pm at 5:22 pm:
Correct.
Setting aside that post-war nation-building is common sense for securing the long-term peace subsequent to war and it’s been standard practice for American leadership of the free world since WW2, the peace operations with Iraq were also part and parcel with the UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement. Casus belli was Iraq’s evidential, categorical “continued violations of its obligations” (UNSCR 1441) per the UNSCR 660 series, ie, “material breach” (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire terms. The Saddam regime’s UNSCR 660-series violations included human rights violations per UNSCR 688, which the US had invasively enforced since 1991 with Iraq. The 2003 regime change was in fact an essential compliance enforcement measure, including for the human rights mandates, once the Saddam regime failed its “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441). President Bush’s decisions with Iraq, including the post-war peace operations, tracked the UN mandates enforced per US law re Iraq.
The law and policy, fact basis of the UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement and peace operations with Iraq is explained at https://operationiraqifreedomfaq.blogspot.com/ – excerpt from the preface:
Re your comment, note especially the OIF FAQ answers to “”was Operation Iraqi Freedom about WMD or democracy” and “Was Operation Iraqi Freedom a strategic blunder or a strategic victory”.
Once the actual why of the Iraq intervention is clarified with the operative law and facts, it’s demonstrable and plain that President Bush and Senator McCain et al, and the US and our allies, were right on Iraq in the 1st place. By the same token, when the Iraq issue is thusly clarified, it’s readily apparent which leaders and pundits have misinformed the public on Iraq contra the operative law and facts.
Art Deco on September 3, 2018 at 5:43 pm at 5:43 pm:
There was no relevant uncertainty in the Iraq decision: Either Iraq would switch off enforcement by proving it was compliant as mandated with the UNSCR 660 series or trigger enforcement by remaining noncompliant, ie, in “material breach” (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire. The Gulf War ceasefire terms defined the Saddam regime’s outstanding threat with diagnostic measurements cum prescriptive measures for Iraq’s aggression, terrorism, WMD, conventional armament, and human rights violations. Iraq’s ceasefire violations were confirmed as categorical.
Iraq’s “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441) in 2002-2003 was a pellucid, straightforward pass/fail test. Unfortunately, Saddam chose to fail Iraq’s mandated compliance test again for the “final” time, with the complicity of sitting members of the Security Council, consistent with Iraq’s preceding decade+ of “continued violations of its obligations” (UNSCR 1441). In the end, the Saddam regime failed to take even the 1st step of the principal step of proving the mandated compliance that was required to switch off enforcement: a complete verified account of its proscribed WMD-related program per UNSCR 1441 pursuant to UNSCR 687. The principal trigger for OIF was Hans Blix and UNMOVIC’s final UNSCR 1441 report to the Security Council on 07MAR03 of “about 100 unresolved disarmament issues … grouped into 29 “clusters” and presented by discipline: missiles, munitions, chemical and biological”: see http://www.un.org/depts/unmovic/new/documents/cluster_document.pdf .
Re “remove the sanctions and allow Iraq to do what it felt like”, excerpt from the OIF FAQ answer to “Why did Bush leave the ‘containment’ (status quo)“:
The post-Operation Desert Fox (1998) ad hoc sanctions-based ‘containment’ of Iraq was broken by 2000-2001, if it ever worked at all – again, with the complicity of sitting members of the Security Council. As such, by 2001-2002, the US president’s power to “remove the sanctions” on Iraq was already, in effect, deleveraged. Saddam was practically uncontained and moving ahead with his inimical ambitions.
With the post-ODF ad hoc ‘containment’ no longer an effective option with Iraq, the President’s choices with the Saddam problem were limited to compromise the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” (UNSCR 1441) to let noncompliant Saddam contravene the categorical set of essential international norms that defined the baseline American-led international law enforcement of the post-Cold War, or step up resolutely to effectually enforce Iraq’s mandated compliance in Iraq’s “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441) – even if such principled leadership necessitated regime change in order to bring Iraq into its mandated compliance. The hope was that in the end, facing a credible threat of regime change, Saddam would comply as mandated and as Iraq had agreed. But like he did against the UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement throughout, Saddam chose to call our bluff again in 2003, like he did in 1990-1991 to cause the Gulf War.
Re “The costs of the latter are palpable to you because that is the tack we took”, it should be noted that alongside Saddam’s reconstitution of Iraq’s UNSCR 687-proscribed armament, his UNSCR 687-proscribed “regional and global terrorism” (Iraqi Perspectives Project), which included “considerable operational overlap” (IPP) with al Qaeda, and domestic rule by “widespread terror (UNCHR) were found to be “far worse” (UNCHR) than was known before OIF. Notably, Iraqi ex-pats were taken aback by how much the Saddam regime had virulently corrupted Iraqi society since the Iran-Iraq War, including with radical sectarianism.
As IPP report author Jim Lacey observed, knowing what we know now, the Iraqi regime change came “not a moment too soon”. Invading Iraq was akin to a surgery on a cancer patient that finds the cancer is far more metastatic than had been diagnosed, requiring radical adjustment to the treatment. Knowing what we know now, the terrorist insurgency that broke down the initial “light footprint” post-war plan, until we adjusted with the counterinsurgency “Surge”, was a product of the Saddam regime, not an effect of deposing the Saddam regime.
Delaying resolution of the Saddam problem any longer would not have solved the worsening Saddam problem. Letting Saddam free of Iraq’s Gulf War ceasefire obligations certainly would not have solved the Saddam cancer.
I guess we have to get back to what a “hero” is supposed to be. The etymology of the word appears to rest upon the meaning “protector”.
Then there is a “classical” sense, according to Wiki, and my school teachers, wherein the sense becomes somewhat divorced from any notion of altruistic benevolence or the preservation of the folk and their ways, and focuses instead on someone warring persistently for fame and honor and celebrity and achieving it.
Wiki:
There is a good deal in the description above which obviously fits either McCain’s image of himself as “semi-divine … gifted … resourceful and skilled”; or, his actual behavior, ” .. lives and dies in the pursuit of honor … foolhardy, court[s] disaster, risk[s] … followers’ lives [or liberties] for trivial matters, and behave[s] arrogantly in a childlike manner.”
And as his departing comment to a political world which suffered his presence not too gladly, McCain rode out on the age’s most notorious anthem to egotism and vainglory: “My Way”; which even Sinatra, later in his life, cringed over.
As C.S. Lewis famously stated,
So, I suppose that one can admit that a particular person meets some of the criteria of the traditional literary definition of “hero”, and still shrug at the smug, self-aggrandizing bastard’s, demise.
Whatever McCain was fighting for, it was not a republic of law and liberty.
Every time leftist perform a mockery of a funeral the can’t help but let the mask slip and show who their god is.
Is it any wonder why Christians don’t want to bake a cake for this s***?