When the carrier USS Forrestal went up in flames as a result of a Zuni getting cooked off on deck a young pilot can be seen escaping out of his plane before it was fully consumed in the fire. John McCain survived that near death experience only to be shot down, imprisoned and tortured yet amazingly refused to be sent home when offered the chance.
I never fully embraced his politics, but the man served our country fully.
Always sad to see somebody go. McCain was a significant, occasionally helpful presence in Congress for years, but there can be no doubt that he played his part in the catastrophic decline of the Republican party, notably by elevating Sarah Palin to the limelight and afterwards by going along with the racist authoritarian transformation of his party. A man of principle was revealed to be as vain and calculating and self-interested as the rest of them. Bottom line, this was an important figure in an extremist Republican party that for twenty-five years has devoted its energies to enriching its donors, oppressing the poor and the nonwhite, and expanding its power at the expense of Americans and our treasurable democratic system. The fact that his death has provoked such a huge response is yet another example of the low moral and political expectations that Republicans have wrongly enjoyed since Reagan. I’ll not shed a tear for him.
As I said privately… given it was so fast it may have been his life support turned off (rather than he discontinued “medical treatment”). And that may well have been his directive.
Even though I differ politically I always considered him to be a decent honorable man dedicated to the service of our nation regardless of ideology. In 2000 he probably would have been a better president than the lackluster incompetent Bush/Cheney.
McCain and his family should have been more critical of the Bush campaign and their acolytes involved in the ugly invective directed at them in 2000 during the South Carolina primary. The robo callls claiming that he had a black child out of wedlock and claim that he squealed and gave intelligence to his captors.
The Lost Cause goobers defending the flag of treason calling McCain soft on the issue as well as the attacks on his military service kind of presaged Trumpism.
Obama’s statement is thoughtful, classy, and heartfelt, recognizing their differences but more, their shared devotion to the country. Just what we would expect from him and Michelle.
I saw something today that said he had told aides that he had no regrets about his comments on “lik[ing] people who don’t get captured.” President Peevish sounds off. I hope he shows his ass about this. It’s not his best side; it’s
his only side.
(I like people who don’t consider avoiding an STD as being equivalent to serving in Viet Nam.)