Thoughts on the political career of John McCain
I honor his service and I acknowledge that he was courageous as POW. But he helped us get where we are today. All Republicans did. And with his cynical pick of Palin, he moved the needle a lot.
In terms of his political career, good riddance. He supported and voted for many destructive policies that we will be affected by for years to come.
shoshannah said:
I honor his service and I acknowledge that he was courageous as POW. But he helped us get where we are today. All Republicans did. And with his cynical pick of Palin, he moved the needle a lot.
But Palin could see Russia from her front porch.........I can only see the Maple Leaf.
Already “liked” ml1’s post, but I’d like to further acknowledge the balance and nuance contained in it.
McCain was deeply flawed in many ways, and way too much of a hawk, but he did have a conscience.
I think he is emblematic of his generation, and that's a problem. No one act or one politician got us where we are today. Hard decisions about financing foriegn adventures were pushed down the road by both parties and ignored. In the last 30 years I don't think any policy of any sort was looked at in the long term, meaning beyond one election cycle. Enviromental policies were short sighted and designed primarily not to offend coal or oil companies. Republicans are reacting to the changing world with anger, fear, and hatred. Democrats can really take advantage of the situation, but only if they push hard for new blood. That whole generation in office needs to go. They took good care of themselves.
FilmCarp said:
... In the last 30 years I don't think any policy of any sort was looked at in the long term, meaning beyond one election cycle....
Extracted this for emphasis. Couldn’t agree more with this, but I don’t know how to change it.
One thing I will say: recently Trump managed to parrot a business talking point about quarterly financial reporting being problematic. Same issue as elections and I couldn’t agree more. Short term thinking is undermining good long term decision making.
You probably already know what happened. In October of ’67 McCain was himself still a Young Voter and flying his 23rd Vietnam combat mission and his A-4 Skyhawk plane got shot down over Hanoi and he had to eject, which basically means setting off an explosive charge that blows your seat out of the plane, which ejection broke both McCain’s arms and one leg and gave him a concussion and he started falling out of the skies right over Hanoi. Try to imagine for a second how much this would hurt and how scared you’d be, three limbs broken and falling toward the enemy capital you just tried to bomb. His chute opened late and he landed hard in a little lake in a park right in the middle of downtown Hanoi, Imagine treading water with broken arms and trying to pull the life vest’s toggle with your teeth as a crowd of Vietnamese men swim out toward you (there’s film of this, somebody had a home – movie camera, and the N.V. government released it, though it’s grainy and McCain’s face is hard to see). The crowd pulled him out and then just about killed him. U.S. bomber pilots were especially hated, for obvious reasons. McCain got bayoneted in the groin; a soldier broke his shoulder apart with a rifle butt. Plus by this time his right knee was bent 90-degrees to the side with the bone sticking out. Try to imagine this. He finally got tossed on a jeep and taken five blocks to the infamous Hoa Lo prison – a.k.a. the “Hanoi Hilton,” of much movie fame – where they made him beg a week for a doctor and finally set a couple of the fractures without anesthetic and let two other fractures and the groin wound (imagine: groin wound) stay like they were. Then they threw him in a cell. Try for a moment to feel this. All the media profiles talk about how McCain still can’t lift his arms over his head to comb his hair, which is true. But try to imagine it at the time, yourself in his place, because it’s important. Think about how diametrically opposed to your own self-interest getting knifed in the balls and having fractures set without painkiller would be, and then about getting thrown in a cell to just lie there and hurt, which is what happened. He was delirious with pain for weeks, and his weight dropped to 100 pounds, and the other POWs were sure he would die; and then after a few months like that after his bones mostly knitted and he could sort of stand up they brought him in to the prison commandant’s office and offered to let him go. This is true. They said he could just leave. They had found out that McCain’s father was one of the top-ranking naval officers in the U.S. Armed Forces (which is true – both his father and grandfather were admirals), and the North Vietnamese wanted the PR coup of mercifully releasing his son, the baby-killer. McCain, 100 pounds and barely able to stand, refused, The U.S. military’s Code of Conduct for Prisoners of War apparently said that POWs had to be released in the order they were captured, and there were others who’d been in Hoa Lo a long time, and McCain refused to violate the Code. The commandant, not pleased, right there in the office had guards break his ribs, rebreak his arm, knock his teeth out. McCain still refused to leave without the other POWs. And so then he spent four more years in Hoa Lo like this, much of the time in solitary, in the dark, in a closet-sized box called a “punishment cell.” Maybe you’ve heard all this before; it’s been in umpteen different media profiles of McCain. But try to imagine that moment between getting offered early release and turning it down. Try to imagine it was you. Imagine how loudly your most basic, primal self-interest would have cried out to you in that moment, and all the ways you could rationalize accepting the offer. Can you hear it? It so, would you have refused to go? You simply can’t know for sure. None of us can. It’s hard even to imagine the pain and fear in that moment, much less know how you’d react. (from here)
So, on balance, I forgive him his political missteps.
I don't think recognizing his courage as a POW requires forgiving him for his awful politics. It's possible to hold those two thoughts about him at the same time.
The problem with seemingly benign phrases like "political missteps" is that when someone is a legislator at the national level for many years, even just one "misstep" a month can lead to policies that make life difficult, if not worse, for millions of people and are very difficult to reverse.
I agree on applauding him for not repealing ACA, as I think giving more people access to better healthcare and at lower cost are priorities. But as the effects of climate change worsen, gun violence increases, our infrastructure literally crumbles in front of our eyes, one has to ask, where was McCain in all of this?
here's an important point made by historian Timothy Patrick McCarthy in The Nation:
But I can’t get out of my head the fact that John McCain is also the person who gave us Sarah Palin, founding “hockey mom” of the Tea Party, a decision he and his campaign handlers have since claimed to regret. This is no minor matter. McCain’s choice of Palin as his running mate was a hasty, cynical, and desperate media move, designed to alter the political dynamics of a presidential race that was slipping away from him at the time. It also unleashed the fresh hell of white grievance and xenophobic racism that brought us Donald Trump. In the last two years, McCain has been widely celebrated as a “true patriot,” always the “maverick,” a striking (and admittedly rare) Republican antidote to Trump and Trumpism. But less than a decade ago, he was fully complicit—there is no way to sugarcoat or euphemize this—in Palin and Palinism, which is the immediate antecedent to the current national nightmare in which we all find ourselves. https://www.thenation.com/article/reckoning-with-john-mccain/
ml1 said:
here's an important point made by historian Timothy Patrick McCarthy in The Nation:
But I can’t get out of my head the fact that John McCain is also the person who gave us Sarah Palin, founding “hockey mom” of the Tea Party, a decision he and his campaign handlers have since claimed to regret. This is no minor matter. McCain’s choice of Palin as his running mate was a hasty, cynical, and desperate media move, designed to alter the political dynamics of a presidential race that was slipping away from him at the time. It also unleashed the fresh hell of white grievance and xenophobic racism that brought us Donald Trump. In the last two years, McCain has been widely celebrated as a “true patriot,” always the “maverick,” a striking (and admittedly rare) Republican antidote to Trump and Trumpism. But less than a decade ago, he was fully complicit—there is no way to sugarcoat or euphemize this—in Palin and Palinism, which is the immediate antecedent to the current national nightmare in which we all find ourselves. https://www.thenation.com/article/reckoning-with-john-mccain/
Yes. It's like those who casually "regret" supporting the war in Iraq.
apple44 said:
The problem with seemingly benign phrases like "political missteps" is that when someone is a legislator at the national level for many years, even just one "misstep" a month can lead to policies that make life difficult, if not worse, for millions of people and are very difficult to reverse.
I agree on applauding him for not repealing ACA, as I think giving more people access to better healthcare and at lower cost are priorities. But as the effects of climate change worsen, gun violence increases, our infrastructure literally crumbles in front of our eyes, one has to ask, where was McCain in all of this?
Usually on the wrong side. This so-called maverick followed the Republican party line over 90% by his votes and positions.
This was a huge misstep - S&L debacle ( a pre-cursor to the sub-prime melt down)
"One of our jobs as elected officials is to help constituents in a proper fashion," McCain said. "ACC (American Continental Corp.) is a big employer and important to the local economy. I wouldn't want any special favors for them. ..." (wink wink)
Here's an example that symbolizes the exaggerated, unjustified adulation being heaped on John McCain.
WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin (frequent MSNBC pundit) posted a Tweet (see below) applauding John McCain as a champion of human rights. It's been pointed out by many on Twitter that the individual on McCain's left is head of the right-wing, anti-Semitic Ukrainian Svoboda Party https://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-meets-oleh-tyahnybok-in-ukraine-2013-12
and even with regard to torture, McCain talked a better game than he actually played:
But when it came time to fight for actual legislation to force the Bush administration’s hand and ban the use of these methods once and for all, McCain was far less courageous. Rather than stick to his principles, he sold them out for politics — and effectively allowed the Bush administration to continue torturing people, and to get away with it scot-free.
Russian dissident who may have been poisoned will be one of McCain's pall bearers.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/28/john-mccain-pallbearer-russia-799061
paulsurovell said:
WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin (frequent MSNBC pundit) posted a Tweet (see below) applauding John McCain as a champion of human rights. It's been pointed out by many on Twitter that the individual on McCain's left is head of the right-wing, anti-Semitic Ukrainian Svoboda Party
It would surprise me if Right-Wing Zionist Rubin knew this.
Warmonger McCain. In an article from 5 years ago, 13 countries that McCain was eager to go to war with.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/john-mccain-world-attack-map-syria/
One other thing about John McCain was that he was proof positive of the corrupt hollowness of Beltway punditry. He, more than anyone else knew that if you palled around with the journalists, made them feel important, gave them access, they'd help you build any image you wanted. He created the "straight talk" fiction, fed it to them, and they repeated it endlessly for years. It was such an enduring monument of BS that it remains a prominent part of his obituaries.
The thing about McCain is the stuff that he's lauded for - being a "straight-shooter", occasionally choosing conscience over party, being diplomatic and respectful to Obama (at certain times), is stuff that any normal person would do.
That kind of behavior is not "heroic". It's being human.
No one who has ever seen combat thinks "wars are good". But many who have, realize wars are sometimes necessary.
LOST said:
paulsurovell said:It would surprise me if Right-Wing Zionist Rubin knew this.
WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin (frequent MSNBC pundit) posted a Tweet (see below) applauding John McCain as a champion of human rights. It's been pointed out by many on Twitter that the individual on McCain's left is head of the right-wing, anti-Semitic Ukrainian Svoboda Party
Agreed. That's the point. If you call McCain a champion of human rights you're going to (mixed metaphor) wake up with fleas.
drummerboy said:
The thing about McCain is the stuff that he's lauded for - being a "straight-shooter", occasionally choosing conscience over party, being diplomatic and respectful to Obama (at certain times), is stuff that any normal person would do.
That kind of behavior is not "heroic". It's being human.
Exactly what is so disturbing about the present state of things.
DannyArcher said:
No one who has ever seen combat thinks "wars are good". But many who have, realize wars are sometimes necessary.
Now that would be a discussion worth having.
DannyArcher said:
No one who has ever seen combat thinks "wars are good". But many who have, realize wars are sometimes necessary.
Those "sometimes" are a pretty rare occurrence.
Which of the wars since WWII that we've been involved in were "necessary"? Did McCain fail to support any of them?
The guy was simply horrible on policy - as are most Republicans, of course. I mean, that's the problem.
OTOH - he was instrumental in renewing relations with Vietnam (so I hear these days), so he did good on that one. Not enough to excuse the rest, of course.
+1 ML1's post. I'd like to add that I think McCain believed in the idea of an elected representative as being accountable to all of his/her constituents, not merely those who voted for him/her. Wrong headed as I often believed his policy preferences to be, I think he sincerely believed in them, and believed that they would be better for all Americans, not just those who shared his politics.
In this, I see him and Romney (as the last two GOP presidential candidates before Trump) as marking the end of a generation in GOP politics. Trump clearly does not see himself as representing all Americans, but as representing white, cultural conservatives at war with everyone else (of course, the joke's on his supporters, as in truth Trump really only sees his duty as to himself -- whether and when his base wises up to this is the ongoing question). And the rest of his party is no different at this point -- it's why he was elected in the first place. What did Trump offer throughout his campaign, and what has he accomplished in his presidency? Nothing positive or constructive. It's all been reactionary and destructive -- rolling back as much of Obama's legacy as possible, picking fights on hot button cultural issues, turning the office of the presidency into what amounts to a petulant trolling operation that often seems to have no higher aim than to "own the libs" (and, again, pocket as much lucre as he can while at it).
So I do miss McCain, because for all his enormous faults, I think that he did believe in America, in contrast to today's Republican party, who I honestly believe do not think of millions of their fellow citizens as "real Americans." The awful irony, of course, is that this idea of there being "real Americans" and I guess "fake Americans" is a phrase we can attribute to Sarah Palin, who as Ml1 noted, threatens to be McCain's longest lasting legacy.
ml1 said:
One other thing about John McCain was that he was proof positive of the corrupt hollowness of Beltway punditry. He, more than anyone else knew that if you palled around with the journalists, made them feel important, gave them access, they'd help you build any image you wanted. He created the "straight talk" fiction, fed it to them, and they repeated it endlessly for years. It was such an enduring monument of BS that it remains a prominent part of his obituaries.
Ugh, so true - American are so captured by media. Not even one mention of the 'Keating 5' yet. I'm sure if you lost your company $3.4 billion, they'd give you a second chance too, right?
Disgusting.
The liberal super-power is memory, use it. Call Repub-tards on their hypocrisy. John McCain was a hypocrite, not a 'straight talker'.
DannyArcher said:
No one who has ever seen combat thinks "wars are good". But many who have, realize wars are sometimes necessary.
This country has not won a war since WWII. Which of those were necessary?
There already exists one MOL thread to give tribute to John McCain. I thought maybe there's a place for a more "warts and all" discussion.
As I wrote in the other thread, there's little doubt that as POW John McCain showed more toughness, strength and determination in the face of great physical hardship than any of us could ever know. He has my admiration for that.
He was undoubtedly a man who loved the military and was always ready for the U.S. to fight another war. I think that was a huge flaw of his, and his influential support for constant warfare contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. If there's an afterlife, McCain is going to have to answer for that. But in life, I think he truly believed that U.S. wars were good and just, even when they weren't.
He was also a politician like many others. It appeared he was driven more by ambition than by any strong guiding principles (aside from wanting to fight wars of course). And in the decades I've been following politics, there probably hasn't been anything phonier than his Straight Talk Express and "maverick" image. He was pretty much a standard issue conservative who made sure to grandstand prominently on the rare occasions he bucked his party. But give him credit, it worked right up until the end, with headlines hailing the "maverick."
And then there was Sarah Palin. The line from Palin's belligerent ignorance to Trump is a solid, straight bright red one. Unfortunately, this may end up being McCain's longest lasting legacy -- the big shove that he gave his party in the direction of boorish, proud, stupidity and cruelty.
That said, in the age of Trump and the Tea Party, the fact that McCain was a typical politician was often refreshing. The fact that he could speak respectfully of members of the opposing party, and be friendly with them now stands out for its rarity in his party. And that he could still see the Senate as a place where compromise could take place is an attitude that is unfortunately becoming extinct.
The one thing I will remember him for positively is his thumbs down vote on the ACA repeal. Even if he was simply doing it to spite Trump, his vote meant that millions of people got to keep their health insurance.
Overall, I'd just say I'm glad John McCain wasn't elected president. I think on balance his policy ideas were bad for the country, and bad for the world. And as a Senator, his ability to do real damage was minimal.
That said, I do think John McCain loved his country, and his final words were worthy of admiration: