Anyway, John McCain has ceased treatment for his cancer, and that means he won't be around much longer. There is a social norm that one is supposed to say only good things about the dying and recently deceased. As you, my very few readers know, I have very little use for social norms, particularly when they get in the way of my misanthropy. And I don't like John McCain. So, as you read and hear various testimonies to what a great man he supposedly is/was, I thought I should remind you of what he really is/was.
Yes, he was a pilot, who was shot down over Vietnam. He was held prisoner, and he could have been released if he had agreed to make some propaganda for the VC. He withstood years of torture rather than submit. If that were the history of his life, I would have a very different opinion of him. Of course, a draft-dodging, cowardly shitbag like Donny Trump has no business criticizing McCain for his time in Vietnam, which emphasizes the point that there has never been a thing as despicable as Trump, whatever I think of McCain. However, McCain's story doesn't end there.
McCain went into politics. His trajectory was one that began with corruption and ended with empty showboating, but not since Vietnam has he shown a glimmer of courage. Let's start with the corruption. Most people don't remember this, but do you know who Charles Keating was? He was one of the douchebags involved in the "Savings & Loan" banking scandals back in the 1980s. Keating was a con man and a thief who knew that if he really wanted to take things as far as possible, he needed some help from Washington, so he bought off five people in Congress. That included not just everybody's all-American hero, John Glenn, but John McCain. The group was collectively known as "the Keating 5." McCain escaped prosecution, just barely, but decided that he needed to rehabilitate his image.
What McCain understood about journalists was as follows: they have a remarkably short memory, and they are obsessed with campaign finance to an irrational degree. Yes, stuff like the Duncan Hunter scandal happens, but a) he was using the funds for personal stuff rather than campaign activity, which is way stupid and illegal, and b) remember what I keep calling "the paradox of news." If it gets covered, it is because it's a deviation from the norm. Regardless, after the Keating 5 mess, McCain decided that he would trick journalists and other credulous critters into worshipping him as Mr. Clean by becoming Mr. Campaign Finance Reform. It worked. After a few years, nobody even remembered that he was one of the Keating 5. Why? Schemas.
Basic concept from cognitive psychology. A schema is a way of organizing information, and it simplifies the task of doing so. However, information that is inconsistent with your "schema" is harder to recall. That's the downside of a schema. Once you begin to think of John McCain as Mr. Campaign Finance Reform, remembering that he was one of the Keating 5 gets harder because it is out of sync with your schema. Kind of like John Glenn's hero image. It was all a bullshit con, though.
See? I don't even have to get into his cowardice on the confederate flag and other race-baiting issues to show you what a sleazy manipulator he is/was. I think I have made my assessments of the confederate flag clear in other posts, though.
Anyway, eventually, McCain's idiotic bill on campaign finance passes. BCRA. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. McCain-Feingold. Like Satan, it has many names, and it is as ill-begotten. You probably think that "Citizens United" (usually typed in caps-lock, with exclamation points, and lots of hyperbolic bullshit) is responsible for unleashing "dark money" on the political world. Nope. You know who is?
John McCain. BCRA. Here's what happened. Prior to BCRA, individual donors wrote large but disclosed checks to parties-- the DNC and the RNC. BCRA prohibited the DNC and the RNC from accepting large donations. So, where did the money go? Initially, it went to "527s." That number referred to a designation in the IRS code for a type of non-profit that would spend unlimited and undisclosed amounts of money, as long as it did so more than 30 days before a primary election, or more than 60 days before the general election, because that was legal under BCRA.
Yes, people, BCRA created dark money. That undisclosed money floating around in unlimited chunks? That's because of John McCain's idiotic posturing, which he did to rehabilitate his image after he got caught in the Keating 5 mess. The only role that Citizens United v. FEC played was to eliminate the 30 day/60 day windows, such that the dark money is spent throughout the entire campaign rather than stopping at the very end, but in case you hadn't noticed, we live in a perpetual campaign anyway, so that didn't much matter. Citizens United is one of the most overblown court cases in history. And it didn't create dark money. John McCain did.
Now, let's deal with this "maverick" thing. Bullshit. John McCain is not, and never was a "maverick," by any reasonable definition of the word. His voting record in the Senate is as a party loyalist. The difference between McCain and any generic Republican is that when McCain does break from his party on some rare occasion, he does so loudly. He wants credit for it. He wants you to call him a maverick. Ego. Posturing. Preening. I have addressed this before, but let's get back to it. Remember all of the accolades the left heaped on him for his "maverick" turn on healthcare? He was the deciding vote for killing the GOP's Obamacare repeal dreams when he gave his thumbs-down motion indicating his no vote on "skinny repeal." Remember "skinny repeal?" That was McConnell's last-ditch effort, repealing only the individual mandate. McCain said no, after giving a grand speech about the importance of procedure and hearings and all of that regular-order stuff. Yay for John McCain the maverick hero! Right?
Then came the tax bill. The process for the tax bill was even more blinkered than the process for healthcare. They literally wrote the damned bill, by hand, in the margins of the page at the last minute. Hearings and mark-up? Regular order? To hell with that! And then, McConnell added back in... skinny repeal. How did John McCain vote? Same process that he lambasted in his vainglorious speech, same content that he rejected and for which he gladly accepted accolades in the process... and he voted yes. "Maverick," my ass. Nothing with McCain is anything more than posturing.
And while I'm on the topic of "maverick," let's address who else has latched onto that word. The proto-Trump. Sarah Palin.
Look, the economy was tanking in 2008, and the GOP had won two elections in a row (let's count 2000 as a victory for the purposes of this discussion). The likelihood of a Republican victory was low, but John McCain put... that woman within reach of the White House. In itself, that's bad enough. Worse yet, John McCain is as responsible as anyone else for Donald Trump because he helped acclimate the GOP to the kind of anti-intellectual venomousness that Donald Trump feeds them. Sarah Palin was a proto-Trump. John McCain gave the party its Trump precursor.
Donald Trump didn't come out of nowhere. I began this blog with a series called "Trump to Political Science: Drop Dead," about the ways in which Trump's ascent to the top of the ticket in 2016 challenged political science models, but Donald Trump is not a fluke or a one-off. There is a straight line from Richard Nixon to Newt Gingrich to Sarah Palin to Donald Trump. John McCain played his role. He isn't solely responsible. Donald Trump is responsible for Donald Trump's behavior. The GOP electorate is responsible for voting for that piece of shit, and every GOP member of the congressional delegation is responsible for not standing up to Trump amid the worst corruption in the history of this country.
Oh, wait. That includes John McCain too. Has he stood up to Trump? Not. At. All. What does he have to fear at this point? You want to earn some credit in your last days, John? Do something more substantial than disinviting Donny from your funeral. That... didn't impress me. There's a probable Russian asset in the White House, he challenged your war record, and all you can do is disinvite him from your funeral? Really?
Oops. Did I type that? We're not supposed to speak ill of the dead and dying, but John McCain? The image you have of him is based on a combination of two things: a) a war record that is decades old, and b) the successful manipulation of the media, who have wanted to create a hero Republican maverick character. Look at what John McCain has done. He is a creature of corruption who created dark money, unleashed Sarah Palin, which contributed directly to the rise of Donald Trump, he doesn't really stand up to his party on policy, and he has been cowed by Donald Trump as President since the inauguration.
He's better than Donald Trump, but that's a low bar. Once he's gone, as The Onion says, we'll still have Lindsey Graham to carry on his legacy, worthless though it is. And Lindsey, little coward that he is, just gave Trump permission to fire Sessions. Remember how Graham was humiliated and brutalized by Trump in the 2016 primary? Republican politicians are useless, John McCain included. Bye, Johnny.
Yeah, that was cold-blooded. What, you came here for warm thoughts? Those are for good people, like Aretha. I'm still in mourning for her. OK, now's the time for a dig at Johnny for his cowardice on the confederate flag, now that I'm thinking about Aretha. Bloody, race-baiting coward...
OK, more. Just because I really don't like John McCain. Remember that moment in the 2008 campaign when everyone praised him for taking on a racist supporter of his? You know the one. This one.
Here's the problem. Racist, inbred, illiterate hick, who is undoubtedly a YUGE Trumpkin, says she doesn't like Obama because he's an "Arab." McCain's response? He says no, Obama is a decent man. As though you can't be Arab, and decent at the same time. As though they are mutually exclusive. This one has been bugging me for a decade.
This is the man I am supposed to praise? For this? Did anyone actually listen to what he said?
Anyway, just remember that dark money is all John McCain's fault. Sarah Palin too, and she was the precursor to Donald Trump. Every time someone tells you what a great guy McCain was, think about that.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My assessments are my own.
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