Succumbing today of brain cancer, 81-year-old, five-term U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) leaves his maverick imprint on the U.S. Senate, backing Republicans for the most part but not hesitating to reach across the aisle. McCain rode his Vietnam War service, where he spent five years as a prisoner of war, all the way to the U.S. Senate Jan. 3, 1987 at age 51. When McCain ran unsuccessfully in 2008 against former President Barack Obama, McCain was a walking contradiction, rolling the dice picking former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has his running mate. McCain insisted at the time he went after the women’s vote, only to watch his fortunes evaporate on Election Day. Only recently in his memoir, “The Restless Wave,” did McCain admit picking Palin backfired.. Once his presidential ambitions were over, McCain returned to the U.S. Senate where he delivered many impassioned speeches on the Senate floor.
Known for his “Straight-Talk-Express” in the 2008 campaign, McCain tried to but couldn’t overcome Obama’s historic run to the White House. McCain never had more media attention than when he fought like a lion against the candidate and President Donald Trump. While there were many GOP and Democrats slamming Trump, none put his money-where-his-mouth-was more than McCain, actively working in the 2016 to elect former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Shortly after announcing for president June 16, 2015, Trump went after McCain, among other GOP icons, telling CBS News July 18, 2015 that he thought McCain was a war hero because he was captured. “I like war heroes who were not captured,” Trump said, sending McCain on the warpath against Trump. It was McCain shortly after Trump’s remarks that handed former FBI Director James Comey Hillary’s “dossier”.
What McCain and others on both sides of the aisle didn’t know at the time that the author of the so-called “dossier,” Christopher Steele, was on the FBI’s payroll at the time he assembled the “dossier” for Hillary campaign. McCain knew handing the “dossier” to Comey would make him Trump’s enemy for life, something that lasted during his July 17, 2017 diagnosis through today’s passing. McCain’s 31-year-old Fox News analyst daughter Meghan made clear that Trump was not welcome at her father’s funeral. McCain, only days after he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, cast the decisive vote July 25, 2017 against Trump to save what’s left of Obama’s Affordable Care Act. McCain had no problem trading barbs with Trump, telling voters after the Oct. 7, 2016 Billy Bush’s “locker room” tape of Trump making crude remarks about women.
McCain famously referred a certain rich individual in the 2016 campaign who received a deferment during the Vietnam War for “bone spurs.” McCain had nothing good to say about Trump in 2016 election and his first year-and-a-half in office. At a speech in Philadelphia last year, McCain denounced Trump for his “half-baked, spurious nationalism,” insisting the president’s ideas would “be consigned to the ash heap of history.” Nearly on his deathbed, McCain didn’t hesitate to support former CIA John Brennan for calling Trump’s July 12 Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin “treasonous.” “Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” McCain said, continuing his assault on Trump. “No president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant,” McCain piled on.
Whatever view Trump holds of McCain, it’s in the context of McCain doing everything possible to elect Hillary in 2016. No matter what Trump accomplishes, the media could always count on McCain to slam Trump for practically everything. Today’s media only wants to focus of Trump’s attacks on McCain, ignoring completely McCain’s relentless assaults on Trump from the early days of the campaign. McCain was one of former President George W. Bush’s biggest backers of the Iraq War. Trump didn’t hesitate of call out Bush and his backers, like McCain, for making the worst military blunder in U.S. history. McCain fully backed the Iraq War, costing the thousands of U.S. lives and trillions to the U.S. Treasury. Calling McCain “a patriot of the highest order,” Bush-43 sang McCain’s praises, especially for supporting the Iraq War. McCain left no doubt what he thought of Trump.
Now that McCain’s passed, you’d think both sides would bury the hatchet, something that doesn’t seem possible in today’s bitterly divided atmosphere. Losing a strident anti-Trump voice, the media’s forever grateful for McCain’s relentless attacks on Trump. Yet if you listen to the media, it’s Trump that hasn’t stepped up to venerate McCain’s passing. There’s little doubt that Trump will be blackballed from McCain’s funeral, highlighting in the media Trump’s acrimony toward McCain but not the other way around. Before the media makes McCain’s legacy about Trump, they need to stop politicizing the obvious feud between two GOP titans. McCain’s maverick legacy should remind future generations of elected officials to vote their conscience before political parties. Watching two members of the same party go after each other like Trump and McCain is nothing to be proud of.
