.
Now that John McCain is dead we must wonder how will he be remembered in history? Will the history be recorded factually, or will his story be more a myth?
Most Americans forget or never knew there were always two John McCains: the vision of a selfless, honorable statesman who wasnât afraid to fight the establishment, and the one that the rest of us actually got, which was none of those things.
We already have an indication of whether his legacy will be fact or myth, from the plethora of tributes pouring in from McCainâs political allies and former opponents such as President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, not to mention McCainâs many, many friends in the media.
For much of his career (and particularly after his 2000 presidential bid), the media played a willing role in helping McCain to craft his reputation as a political âmaverickâ and honorable statesman. Thereâs a simple reason for this, apart from his status as a war hero: McCain was always willing to give the media access, the thing it craves above all.
The grateful media rewarded McCain with a shower of appreciation for doing the bare minimum, such as when he shot down supporters at a town hall in 2008 who attacked then-Senator Barack Obama. (Even that incident is more complicated than you might remember.) And no one appreciated the mediaâs desire for a drama-filled narrative more than McCain himself.
When the GOP nearly repealed the Affordable Care Act last year, he concealed his position until the moment he actually cast his vote. And before he voted to help sink the bill, he told reporters: âWatch the show.â The âshowâ was healthcare coverage for 22 million people.
Of course, McCainâs willingness to do only the bare minimum, rare as it was, did set him apart from his Republican colleagues at times. He bucked his party after 9/11 by opposing the use of torture. As most people up to date on current events remember, one of the last major acts of his life, was to urge the Senate to reject the confirmation of CIA director Gina Haspel, who oversaw torture.
However, further back in history, McCain was implicated in the Keating Five scandal. But, since it his was early in his political career, Senateâs official report found that his conduct did nothing more than âreflect poor judgment.â Perhaps due to that lesson, he became a fierce advocate for campaign finance reform. He joined liberal Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, and the two of them led the way to pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. Itâs questionable how effective it actually was, but in a post-Citizens United world, it can be seen as, at the very least, an attempt to head off the influence large donors now hold over the political process.
Unfortunately, these policy stances all grew out of McCainâs reaction to his personal history of being tortured during the Vietnam War, and because his career in the Senate was nearly ended over political contributions.
As he realized his death was imminent, he once again did the bare minimum, he voted against his partyâs effort to repeal the ACA. But we must wonder again, did he vote against the bill out of compassion for the countless Americans who would have died as a result? After all, he was one of the obstructionists in GâNOâP who fought against the creation of Obamacare in the first place. So, will his vote to save the ACA contribute to his true legacy or his myth?
To most people his legacy will be that of a hero and a patriot, and someone who put country over party. That narrative is given a tremendous boost since McCain died while the idiot trump is in the White House.
And, there is no escaping that those who love McCain the most will be the ones who write his legacy. So the inevitable myth they compose will obscure the evidence that the sum total of his career was harmful to the country and the larger world around it.
Most Americans prefer to believe there is a solemn respect for war and soldiers, and that it a bipartisan area of agreement in this country. But the sad truth is, the wars the U.S. now fight are mostly ignored by the media, and so too, the public.
In reality, it is only after their deaths when veterans are truly honored and acknowledged, until then, most veterans go unnoticed by the public. It was only McCainâs political position that kept the public aware of his history as a prisoner who was tortured during the Vietnam War. Without it, his career in politics would likely never have happened. With his death it is the top line of his obituary.
McCain military experience in Vietnam was that of great suffering, but he was not alone. However, his time there is a real and substantial part of his legacy.
Sadly, his deeply personal experience with the brutality of an unnecessary war did not interfere with him being the Iraq Warâs biggest, loudest cheerleader outside of the Bush administration. McCain relied on his war hero status to lend credence to the invasion and subjecting another generation of soldiers to another horrible, pointless conflict.
The New York Times wrote in a 2008 review of McCainâs actions and statements after 9/11:
-----------
âWithin hours [of 9/11], Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.
-----------
Within a month he made clear his priority. âVery obviously Iraq is the first country,â he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: âNext up, Baghdad!?â â
----------
He pushed the war even after it became clear to all but those with the rosiest-colored glasses that it was an abject failure. McCain only admitted in his final memoir, written when he was practically on his deathbed, that the war âcanât be judged as anything other than a mistake, a very serious one, and I have to accept my share of the blame for it.â
But, even though he recognized that this adventure in regime change was a âmistakeâ that led to the destabilizing of an entire region, and resulted in the deaths of well over a million people, McCain completely ignored the lessons of that colossal failure. He continued his nearly career-long desire for a war with Iran, as he heaped praise on the idiot trumpâs âstrategyâ in sabotaging the Iran nuclear deal. (It says much that the last honor of McCainâs life which was bestowed up on him was his fellow senatorsâ decision to name the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019 after him.)
Regrettably, the Iran deal was not the only time where McCain found common cause with the idiot trump, a man heâs feuded for years. Unlike his role in sinking the repeal of Obamacare, McCain was one of the key votes to support the idiot trumpâs tax scam last December, which will undeniably hurt any American who isnât very rich. His vote for a hastily written bill that will drastically increase the deficit also came after over a decade of concern trolling about the deficit and months of pleading for a return to âregular orderâ in the Senate. The tax law McCain voted for also killed the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, the same law McCain had gotten so much credit for saving just months earlier.
Continuing the list of instances when McCain hurt the American people by helping the idiot trump is his major roll in the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. McCain whined during that entire process that Democrats might try to block his confirmation. Had McCain forgotten that, during the 2016 campaign, he promised that the Republicans would be unified in blocking anyone Hillary Clinton might put up for the job.
In all, McCain voted with the the idiot trump administrationâs stated position 83 percent of the time, despite the fact that he had known for over a year that he was dying and would never have to face angry Republican voters again.
An appreciation of McCain also would not be complete without noting that he helped to normalize the far right element of the Republican Party with his selection of then-Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. McCain only disclosed in his recent memoir that he regretted his choice of Palin. (He said his own personal preference would have been former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman. After all, Lieberman was just as fervent about the Iraq War as McCain himself.) But as with so many other decisions made over the course of his career, McCainâs choice was driven by political expediency and his loyalty to a party that has continuously moved further and further right after McCainâs campaign gave Palinâs insanity a national platform.
McCainâs political legacy should be that he consistently vacillated between doing the right thing doing the opposite, and almost every single time decided on the opposite. He should be remembered as a man who was a willing and active participant in the destruction of one country, and a man who helped the racist, authoritarian right rise in his own. What John McCainâs legacy will be, however, is the one crafted by the reporters and peers who loved him, who bought hook, line, and sinker that McCain was a different kind of politician, and not the fraud he actually was.
The Reagan myth can be an outline to help McCainâs biographers use alternative facts, tall tales, and outright lies to create a myth second only to that of Reagan's.
The idiot trump's devoted fans will find it difficult to decide whether to support their orange-hued hero's hatred of McCain, or, defend his memory against the truth contained in this OP because he was a Republican. Either way, their responses will deserve no reply.
.
Now that John McCain is dead we must wonder how will he be remembered in history? Will the history be recorded factually, or will his story be more a myth?
Most Americans forget or never knew there were always two John McCains: the vision of a selfless, honorable statesman who wasnât afraid to fight the establishment, and the one that the rest of us actually got, which was none of those things.
We already have an indication of whether his legacy will be fact or myth, from the plethora of tributes pouring in from McCainâs political allies and former opponents such as President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, not to mention McCainâs many, many friends in the media.
For much of his career (and particularly after his 2000 presidential bid), the media played a willing role in helping McCain to craft his reputation as a political âmaverickâ and honorable statesman. Thereâs a simple reason for this, apart from his status as a war hero: McCain was always willing to give the media access, the thing it craves above all.
The grateful media rewarded McCain with a shower of appreciation for doing the bare minimum, such as when he shot down supporters at a town hall in 2008 who attacked then-Senator Barack Obama. (Even that incident is more complicated than you might remember.) And no one appreciated the mediaâs desire for a drama-filled narrative more than McCain himself.
When the GOP nearly repealed the Affordable Care Act last year, he concealed his position until the moment he actually cast his vote. And before he voted to help sink the bill, he told reporters: âWatch the show.â The âshowâ was healthcare coverage for 22 million people.
Of course, McCainâs willingness to do only the bare minimum, rare as it was, did set him apart from his Republican colleagues at times. He bucked his party after 9/11 by opposing the use of torture. As most people up to date on current events remember, one of the last major acts of his life, was to urge the Senate to reject the confirmation of CIA director Gina Haspel, who oversaw torture.
However, further back in history, McCain was implicated in the Keating Five scandal. But, since it his was early in his political career, Senateâs official report found that his conduct did nothing more than âreflect poor judgment.â Perhaps due to that lesson, he became a fierce advocate for campaign finance reform. He joined liberal Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, and the two of them led the way to pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. Itâs questionable how effective it actually was, but in a post-Citizens United world, it can be seen as, at the very least, an attempt to head off the influence large donors now hold over the political process.
Unfortunately, these policy stances all grew out of McCainâs reaction to his personal history of being tortured during the Vietnam War, and because his career in the Senate was nearly ended over political contributions.
As he realized his death was imminent, he once again did the bare minimum, he voted against his partyâs effort to repeal the ACA. But we must wonder again, did he vote against the bill out of compassion for the countless Americans who would have died as a result? After all, he was one of the obstructionists in GâNOâP who fought against the creation of Obamacare in the first place. So, will his vote to save the ACA contribute to his true legacy or his myth?
To most people his legacy will be that of a hero and a patriot, and someone who put country over party. That narrative is given a tremendous boost since McCain died while the idiot trump is in the White House.
And, there is no escaping that those who love McCain the most will be the ones who write his legacy. So the inevitable myth they compose will obscure the evidence that the sum total of his career was harmful to the country and the larger world around it.
Most Americans prefer to believe there is a solemn respect for war and soldiers, and that it a bipartisan area of agreement in this country. But the sad truth is, the wars the U.S. now fight are mostly ignored by the media, and so too, the public.
In reality, it is only after their deaths when veterans are truly honored and acknowledged, until then, most veterans go unnoticed by the public. It was only McCainâs political position that kept the public aware of his history as a prisoner who was tortured during the Vietnam War. Without it, his career in politics would likely never have happened. With his death it is the top line of his obituary.
McCain military experience in Vietnam was that of great suffering, but he was not alone. However, his time there is a real and substantial part of his legacy.
Sadly, his deeply personal experience with the brutality of an unnecessary war did not interfere with him being the Iraq Warâs biggest, loudest cheerleader outside of the Bush administration. McCain relied on his war hero status to lend credence to the invasion and subjecting another generation of soldiers to another horrible, pointless conflict.
The New York Times wrote in a 2008 review of McCainâs actions and statements after 9/11:
-----------
âWithin hours [of 9/11], Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.
-----------
Within a month he made clear his priority. âVery obviously Iraq is the first country,â he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: âNext up, Baghdad!?â â
----------
He pushed the war even after it became clear to all but those with the rosiest-colored glasses that it was an abject failure. McCain only admitted in his final memoir, written when he was practically on his deathbed, that the war âcanât be judged as anything other than a mistake, a very serious one, and I have to accept my share of the blame for it.â
But, even though he recognized that this adventure in regime change was a âmistakeâ that led to the destabilizing of an entire region, and resulted in the deaths of well over a million people, McCain completely ignored the lessons of that colossal failure. He continued his nearly career-long desire for a war with Iran, as he heaped praise on the idiot trumpâs âstrategyâ in sabotaging the Iran nuclear deal. (It says much that the last honor of McCainâs life which was bestowed up on him was his fellow senatorsâ decision to name the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019 after him.)
Regrettably, the Iran deal was not the only time where McCain found common cause with the idiot trump, a man heâs feuded for years. Unlike his role in sinking the repeal of Obamacare, McCain was one of the key votes to support the idiot trumpâs tax scam last December, which will undeniably hurt any American who isnât very rich. His vote for a hastily written bill that will drastically increase the deficit also came after over a decade of concern trolling about the deficit and months of pleading for a return to âregular orderâ in the Senate. The tax law McCain voted for also killed the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, the same law McCain had gotten so much credit for saving just months earlier.
Continuing the list of instances when McCain hurt the American people by helping the idiot trump is his major roll in the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. McCain whined during that entire process that Democrats might try to block his confirmation. Had McCain forgotten that, during the 2016 campaign, he promised that the Republicans would be unified in blocking anyone Hillary Clinton might put up for the job.
In all, McCain voted with the the idiot trump administrationâs stated position 83 percent of the time, despite the fact that he had known for over a year that he was dying and would never have to face angry Republican voters again.
An appreciation of McCain also would not be complete without noting that he helped to normalize the far right element of the Republican Party with his selection of then-Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. McCain only disclosed in his recent memoir that he regretted his choice of Palin. (He said his own personal preference would have been former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman. After all, Lieberman was just as fervent about the Iraq War as McCain himself.) But as with so many other decisions made over the course of his career, McCainâs choice was driven by political expediency and his loyalty to a party that has continuously moved further and further right after McCainâs campaign gave Palinâs insanity a national platform.
McCainâs political legacy should be that he consistently vacillated between doing the right thing doing the opposite, and almost every single time decided on the opposite. He should be remembered as a man who was a willing and active participant in the destruction of one country, and a man who helped the racist, authoritarian right rise in his own. What John McCainâs legacy will be, however, is the one crafted by the reporters and peers who loved him, who bought hook, line, and sinker that McCain was a different kind of politician, and not the fraud he actually was.
The Reagan myth can be an outline to help McCainâs biographers use alternative facts, tall tales, and outright lies to create a myth second only to that of Reagan's.
The idiot trump's devoted fans will find it difficult to decide whether to support their orange-hued hero's hatred of McCain, or, defend his memory against the truth contained in this OP because he was a Republican. Either way, their responses will deserve no reply.
.
