I get it--he was a patriot, he fought for his country and handled his capture and torture heroically. In 2008, as he ran for President, he pushed back (a bit)* against those who considered Obama to be an Arab or African, to be an awful person, etc. He also pushed back against Fox News (once) when it tried to get him to condemn our Syrian allies for saying Allahu Akbar. He also cast the critical vote to save ACA.
But I get a bit queasy when people talk about him as being so principled. He was part of a corruption scandal (Keating 5), he cheated on his previous wife, and, more importantly for me, was often more talk than action. He voted for Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. He voted for the irresponsible tax cut that included pieces that harmed ACA, and, despite his record as a maverick, he voted with his party nearly all of the time. And, yes, he gave us Sarah Palin.
The media loved him because he was kind to the media and a good story, which means the warts were not as obvious as the virtues. Every politician has a mixture of virtues and warts--ok, not today, as Ryan, McConnell, Duncan Hunter and the rest of the GOP today have few, if any, virtues. And, I guess that is another reason McCain is lionized--that he stood out from his party, that every once in a while, he voted as he talked, and that made a difference. Plus in the battle between McCain and Trump over who cared about the country and had some principles, it was no contest. And McCain's trolling of Trump (apparently wanting to have GWB and Obama be his eulogists) was pretty epic.
So, I am sorry that he had such a painful exit, I am sorry he is died, but I will always think he was overrated. Is that mean to say a day after he died? Probably, but we don't talk about the dead three weeks later... or at least, we don't blog about them.
* Arabs were not so assured then since McCain said essentially Obama is not an Arab, he's a decent person, as if Arabs could not be decent. His Fox pushback against Allahu Akbar was far, far better.
1 comment:
Once again, I am astounded and (as this has recurred a few times recently)a bit concerned that I may be losing my normal critical snide (I prefer the more elegant term, sardonic) style by agreeing with every detail of your post, as well as with its tone. But there may be one or two explanations for the adulatory remembrances. First, McCain's character rose above the current abysmal norm; it showed some recurring qualities in this time of the drastically lowered expectations we have of our public figures. Second, the sympathy shown may be, for some, a thumb in Trump's eye for his incredibly crude and clumsy attacks on McCain.
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