Hearing of the death of Senator John McCain, I decided to take a little time to think about things. I often do this, trying to determine if I have anything useful to say, perhaps something no one else has. Often, I conclude I don’t. We’re deluged with information like never before in history, and I can’t cover it all, nor do I have an interest in so doing. I already wrote about the Senator back in May in John McCain: Cruel Regrets, just after he announced he was fighting an aggressive brain cancer. Reviewing that article, and reading the many Internet articles about McCain, his good and bad qualities, his accomplishments and failures, I decided I said everything I could reasonably add to public discourse back in May. I concluded that article:
When John McCain meets his end, I’ll feel no joy; the bell tolls for us all. But many of his colleagues will breath a sigh of relief. His ill temper caused a great deal of damage. I suppose there is a temptation to take a few swipes at those we dislike as we near the end. After all, at that point, who cares about social—or other—repercussions? But if one is concerned about one’s legacy, about the way one will be remembered, it is fitting to leave with a modicum of humility and grace. It would appear no one will be accusing John McCain of that.
I pray for his soul, and for the comforting of his family and those that loved him. I commend his service, in the military and in the Senate, but no man, particularly a public man, is immune from criticism, from the consequences of his actions and omissions, in life or death.
But I cannot help finding his legacy soiled by his willful and ugly defeat of the effort to end Obamacare. He was among the Republicans who, for years, swore they would repeal Obamacare at the first opportunity. We can’t do it because Obama will just veto it,they said. Give us control of the government, and we’ll repeal it so fast… Then, miracle of miracles, we gave Republicans the White House, the Senate and the House, and suddenly, there were all manner of excuses–we have to have supermajorities; the sun was in our eyes; we slipped on a banana peel; the media will be mean to us; Democrats will be mean to us–why they couldn’t repeal Obamacare. Why, one would think they never really intended to repeal it at all. One might think they lied to the American people!
Until, that is, they mounted one last ditch attempt to do away with the entire Obama abomination, and it came down to a single Republican senate vote: John McCain. Instead of keeping his promises, instead of helping the American people, he chose—with delight, and every bit of melodrama he could manage—to spit in the eye of Donald Trump and every American.
That was unsurprising. Over his long career, McCain had often been a “maverick,” if maverick is defined as one who betrays the trust of his party and the American people out of spite. I thought it nearly impossible to think more poorly of McCain. And then I found this article from Brietbart:
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who was Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, has been excluded from his funeral.
Breitbart News has independently confirmed an earlier report in People magazine, which reported that Palin was not sent an invitation, and was told through intermediaries to stay away from the ceremony.
McCain fundraiser Carla Eudy confirmed to People that Palin had not been invited — possibly, People speculated, at the behest of the McCain family. [skip]
But unlike Trump [who was also not invited], Palin never feuded with McCain and never criticized him.
As I noted in the original article, Palin has always been very gracious toward McCain. She wrote:
‘When news broke on Saturday of McCain’s passing, Palin said: ‘Today we lost an American original. Sen. John McCain was a maverick and a fighter, never afraid to stand for his beliefs. John never took the easy path in life — and through sacrifice and suffering he inspired others to serve something greater than self.
John McCain was my friend. I will remember the good times. My family and I send prayers for Cindy and the McCain family.”
McCain was anything but gracious toward Palin. In his final, ghostwritten book, he cruelly insulted her, as I noted in the original article:
‘The New York Times reported on Saturday that McCain, while still defending Palin’s performance, said in his upcoming book, ‘The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and other Appreciations,’ that he wishes he had instead selected former Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)
His advisers reportedly had warned against choosing Lieberman, who was once a Democrat, stating that Lieberman’s support of abortion rights could divide Republicans. [skip]
‘It was sound advice that I could reason for myself,’ he writes. ‘But my gut told me to ignore it and I wish I had.’
In a new HBO documentary, McCain goes on to say that not choosing Lieberman was “another mistake” that he made in his political career.’
Sarah Palin, graciously has observed that the slight hurts, but attributes it to McCain’s ghost writer rather than to McCain, who she says has always told her otherwise. Of course, McCain has always had a tendency to turn on friends at the drop of a hat.
Brietbart concluded:
Many in the Beltway blamed Palin for McCain’s loss in 2008 — even though Barack Obama had benefited from a sudden financial crisis and a biased press corps [to say nothing of his bizarre response to that crisis]. That view seemed to have seeped into McCain’s own thinking.
Still, Palin never took offense, and always honored McCain. Even after being excluded from the funeral, she declined to criticize him.
It has also been reported that McCain—or perhaps his family—did not invite many of the top officers involved in his failed 2008 presidential campaign. Many are reciting McCain’s virtues, but when he knew his time was short, he chose to turn on the American people, and to treat those owed loyalty with disdain. It was said in eulogizing McCain that we will not see his like again. I leave it to you, gentle readers, to decide if that is, on balance, a good or bad thing.
A fair post, coming from someone who hadn’t held him in politically high esteem. But the takeaway, at least for me, reminds us of more traditional republicanism where there was some compromise across the aisle; McCain and Ted Kennedy, and even Joe Biden, were similar in that way. The current political climate in Congress doesn’t support compromise because the public is so unmoving, tribal, and many like yourself, Mike… even uttering war… preparing for that possible contingency, or whatever fear you wish to assign; and I mean that for both sides that think that way.
I thought McCain was a bit too hawkish for my tastes but I did appreciate his maverick style to challenge. Such is politics. But being a bit of a military wonk I admire the military hero of his life.
Some of us remember the Keating 5 savings and loan bribery.
Keating 5 senators apparently never did anything illegal… the Senate ethics investigation got on Cranston’s case and reprimanded him… the others, including McCain and John Glenn, were just hand-slaps. No one took bribes masked as campaign contributions. In fact, the money allegedly in question was fairly small when split across 5 ways. No one got rich.. and Keating didn’t get off the hook.
Paraphrased: “It was only minor corruption so that’s OK”.
Where’s the corruption if at best it was determined within the Senate as an ethic violation and not a court of law? I know that likely disappoints you if you were hoping to assign it as some grand corruption scheme in order to support whatever animosity you wish to assign toward McCain for other unrelated reasons.
I thought he was impulsive and his judgment was not reliable. One example is his picking Palin for his running mate. That was an example of how bad his decision making could be.
I don’t know why he vote no on the health care vote. As far as I know he never explained his vote.
He Mande a good guest on the Letterman show. Had a good sense of humor and appeared at ease.
Honor, Duty, Country.
When someone dies people don’t say my how his children had blonde hair. They don’t remark about whether he had tall offspring.
What is remembered is was he a man of his word. His record speaks for itself.
That is the problem I have with him. His record.
An honorable man’s word is his bond. His word had no value.
An honorable man would have left public life after what transpired with Mr. Charles Keating.
We will never know how much damage that his activities brought. What is known just touches the surface.
Andrew.. who do you assign living now.. or even in the past (20th/21st centuries)… as being honorable?
I’m not defending McCain; the man’s politics didn’t always give me warm fuzzies either… just curious.
Thanks for clarifying you comment.
I resent that he blocked declassifying records pertaining to MIA in Vietnam. Maybe those families can finally get answers and find peace. Otherwise, nothing else to say.
Actually, from what I understand, the de-briefing records are classified from the public, but are accessible by the former POW or a designate by signing a waiver. I cannot answer if that process is working, has worked, or is even efficient. The idea is if the freed POW de-briefings were released to the public that there might be evidence contained in testimony of other POWs still alive (at the time). McCain and John Kerry were primary players in putting together the McCain Bill which is the process. Rather than speculate some hidden agenda and until such motive for any deceit is revealed in the future, I will side with the guys who served in Nam.. one of them an ex-POW and the other having been very anti-war, anti-establishment. Apparently they, and others of the committee, had strong opinions regarding keeping this information personal and from public scrutiny.
God can sort it out.
I’m guessing He will be sorting all of us out.
Read thru to the end. It’s relevant.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/09/01/dual-purposed-trump-doctrine-squeeze-3-continues-pentagon-cancels-financial-aid-to-pakistan/#more-153537
Um.. I might venture to suggest the reason McCain “hated” Trump could be a little more than this.
Phil, That was an excellent article. It also seems to match reality as we have seen it.
Now Doug, the chances of any of us on this site ever getting to know the likes of Trump, Obama, ether Bush, or, God forbid, ether Clinton is remote. We don’t travel in their circles. Perhaps if one of us is a closet billionaire, then maybe. All any of us can do is look at results at our end of the stick. The only one who has done anything to help me, my business, and my family is Trump. I don’t really care what he is like in person. I care about the results.
Doug, we are about the same age, our histories are not that different. I’ve been in Silicon Valley for 29 years and I’ve watched americans give away everything that our parent’s generation handed us. I don’t blame the Chinese or Indians, they just took advantage of what was offered. We gave it away. It’s time to take it back. Unless you don’t want your kids and grand kids to have future.
On McCain
He was a war hero. So was my Uncle and many other people’s Uncles and Fathers. Unfortunately, McCain was in the public lime light and reached his level of incompetence. I voted for him for president and supported his campaign with my own money. He could have beat Obama, but he did not. He also betrayed us on the appeal of Obama care. Rommey could have beat Obama, but he did not. Doyle could have beat Clinton but he did not. Results count, failure at the presidential level does not.
Phil, I cannot even venture to make some generalized opinion on your family benefiting from whatever Trump’s actions or inactions have done for you. I’ve not walked the proverbial mile in your shoes to understand whatever dilemmas you were facing in life. I can only speculate a comparison and a moral observation.
You said….
“The only one who has done anything to help me, my business, and my family is Trump. I don’t really care what he is like in person. I care about the results.”
While likely many in his base haven’t directly benefited as you might have, a lot of folks surely share your opinion that results matter and not the man personally. I cannot and will likely never share that opinion. He has serious personality behavioral deficiencies which lead him to not understand nor accept the responsibility and respect of the job of being President… yada, yada.. I’m sure you’ve heard it all by now. I simply to NOT conform to the idea that the end justifies the means. To me that surrenders a part of what Americans are; we get to where we think we might want to go, NOT at the expense of moral expediency, racial bias, etc. Otherwise, we might reach a great goal.. but at what price? What was surrendered in our moral fiber.. what bodies (real or metaphorically) did we create to get there? Was that price worth it? Those are the questions I ask.
What you might see as some “giving the country away” one could also easily perceive America was simply adjusting to a new global challenge; we have, after all, been breaking economic records currently as a result of gradual uphill economic progress since 2009. I don’t see a whole lot that’s been “given away”, given we are still growing.
Again.. I’m not in the least challenging your feeling for Trump having helped your family.. not my judgement to make on anyone.
Really? Nothing was given away and we are still growing? 100 million out of work or no longer looking because there is no work? That is the basis of a shooting revolution.
As for our moral fiber, where has it been since the year 1990 or so? Show it to me. Please.
Benefits to my family? How about to my business? When the corp tax rate was lowered from 35+ percent to 21 percent, all of a sudden large corps stated using USA businesses instead of outsourcing to India or China. I guess that is not much to you, but trust me, it means a lot to a lot of small businesses here in the USA. I simply cannot afford another democrat or righteous republican president who won’t move his ass.
BTW, I’ve traveled pretty extensively in Asia for business and pleasure. The are not our enemies, but they are not our friends if we don’t stand up for ourselves. Also, I’ve got both an Asian wife and an extended Asian family here in silicon valley. I know first hand quite a bit of Asian culture – the good and the bad. I also know quite a bit of Indian engineering culture. My opinions are not pulled out of thin air, they’re baed on hard experience.
Drink all the globalism cool aid you want. Just remember what it did to that group in Jonestown….
First off, I’m not the enemy, Phil.. even though I am likely the icon for this blog for those who seem to want to justify killing fellow Americans to get their own way of life simply because I dislike Trump as President.
You said…
“When the corp tax rate was lowered from 35+ percent to 21 percent, all of a sudden large corps stated using USA businesses instead of outsourcing to India or China.”
Uhh… not sure I totally understand this particular result for the tax relief. I realize the reduction will have various ripples throughout the economy but I rather thought the reason for the corp tax reduction was to encourage corp investment, and the populist, get more pay to employees. I am not sure how this reduction directly translates to corporations starting to use domestic businesses. The idea for outsourcing was primarily to offset the cost of labor in this country. In fact, if part of the intent of the reduction was to encourage higher pay to employees, well, that just makes domestic labor costs even higher… pretty much at the expense of increasing the national debt. The corporate tax amount at tax time is based on corporate net profits. Labor expense is a deduction from said (gross) profits. In effect, the tax cut isn’t helping the reduction in business expense but rather using the U.S. Treasury to finance an increase in business profits. What you are suggesting is that businesses who were once outsourcing to keep labor costs down to stay competitive in the marketplace, are suddenly finding it more cost-effective to now use domestic sources simply because there’s less income tax on future profits? Soo.. the unit cost to manufacture a widget goes up… but the net profit promises to be better, therefore, it’s good business sense to bring sourcing back home?? Seems fluctuations in free market competition might affect this idea.
I’m no economist by any stretch, but I have been in business… and what you are suggesting doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense… to me. Maybe to others.
By the way… I’m sure you know your business and know your markets. I know nothing about Asian markets (or the people for that matter)… simply because my path in life didn’t bring me there. I assume when I engage in chatting with someone in a blog that if what they say comes from a place of credibility, even if not on “my side” of an issue, that makes for good intereaction. But when the justification for everything ends up being mindless tirades about “dumb progressives this, stupid liberals that”.. credibility is lost on me then. A resume is not always necessary unless you wish to share.
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