Donald Trump has now said he will not support Senator John McCain's re-election campaign in Arizona. And Senator McCain has not said, as of this writing, he does not support Trump's candidacy for president.
Wow. What's it going to take?
By now, we are all drearily familiar with the spinelessness of figures like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, both of whom, in the service of their own political survival, have said in effect, “I consider Donald Trump an ignorant fool and I want him to be president of the United States.” One is tempted to again quote Joseph Welch who inquired of demagogue Joseph McCarthy back in the 50’s if, at long last, he had any sense of decency. But that would be of little use because they have clearly demonstrated -- by their continued support of a man they consider to be a danger to our democracy -- that they do not, and that their allegiance is to their political careers.
If this pair have set some kind of record for profiles in cowardice, what to make of John McCain, who has said essentially the same thing and more about Trump, and, in addition, has been personally insulted and mocked in the most egregiously cruel and supercilious manner by him and yet continues to lay supine before him and urge the voters to make him president.
McCain was an American flyer on a combat mission over North Vietnam in 1967 when his plane was brought down by enemy gunfire, a surface-to-air missile. He came down in a lake in the middle of Hanoi, breaking both arms and one leg. When he was pulled from the lake, his left shoulder was broken by a gun butt and he was bayoneted in the foot. Unspeakable horrors followed over the next five years in Hoa Lo prison including beatings, disease, and solitary confinement. He was repeatedly offered his freedom in exchange for saying positive things about his captors and their cause but refused unless the other American POWs were also freed.
Donald Trump, who dodged the draft during that era with student deferments and one medical deferment for bone spurs on his heel, who did not serve in the armed forces let alone in combat, and who claimed the expensive military-themed high school he attended gave him more training than many people who served in the actual armed services, called McCain a loser, and said, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
McCain’s response: Trump should retract statements about preferring military veterans who weren’t captured. “What he said about me, John McCain, that’s fine. I don’t require any repair of that.”
That’s fine?
More recently, of course came the Khizr Khan business in which McCain was again personally if indirectly insulted and belittled by Trump, by way of Trump’s dismissal of another casualty of war, Khan’s son Humayun
But instead of withdrawing his endorsement of Trump and/or demanding he withdraw from the race for this seeming last straw and for the vast and growing collection of other lies and stupidities of which he is guilty, including the recent suggestion that a foreign power spy on the U.S., McCain paid homage to Humayun Khan’s sacrifice, and said Trump ought to set a better example.
“It is time for Donald Trump to set the example for our country and the future of the Republican Party,” he said. “While our Party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”
He should set a better example?
"I claim no moral superiority over Donald Trump,” McCain went on. “I have a long and well-known public and private record for which I will have to answer at the Final Judgment, and I repose my hope in the promise of mercy and the moderation of age.”
Well, if John McCain thinks the pearly gates are going to open wide for him because he supported for president a person whose ideas and policies he despises and who he knows would be bad if not disastrous for America, all in the service of his own re-election in Arizona…well, I can’t speak for St. Peter, but I don’t see it happening. Nor is this the first time McCain has put his own electoral interests ahead of those of the country. Remember, it was McCain who would have put the airhead Sarah Palin a heartbeat away -- not because he thought she would make a good vice-president or president, but because he thought her presence on the ticket would help him get elected.
The ultimate irony and insult: Trump's announcement that he will not back McCain in Arizona. So the question is: At long last, Senator McCain, what’s it going to take?
Who knows? Maybe the people of Arizona will show more courage in this election than their senior senator has, and do the right thing.
If this pair have set some kind of record for profiles in cowardice, what to make of John McCain, who has said essentially the same thing and more about Trump, and, in addition, has been personally insulted and mocked in the most egregiously cruel and supercilious manner by him and yet continues to lay supine before him and urge the voters to make him president.
McCain was an American flyer on a combat mission over North Vietnam in 1967 when his plane was brought down by enemy gunfire, a surface-to-air missile. He came down in a lake in the middle of Hanoi, breaking both arms and one leg. When he was pulled from the lake, his left shoulder was broken by a gun butt and he was bayoneted in the foot. Unspeakable horrors followed over the next five years in Hoa Lo prison including beatings, disease, and solitary confinement. He was repeatedly offered his freedom in exchange for saying positive things about his captors and their cause but refused unless the other American POWs were also freed.
Donald Trump, who dodged the draft during that era with student deferments and one medical deferment for bone spurs on his heel, who did not serve in the armed forces let alone in combat, and who claimed the expensive military-themed high school he attended gave him more training than many people who served in the actual armed services, called McCain a loser, and said, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
McCain’s response: Trump should retract statements about preferring military veterans who weren’t captured. “What he said about me, John McCain, that’s fine. I don’t require any repair of that.”
That’s fine?
More recently, of course came the Khizr Khan business in which McCain was again personally if indirectly insulted and belittled by Trump, by way of Trump’s dismissal of another casualty of war, Khan’s son Humayun
But instead of withdrawing his endorsement of Trump and/or demanding he withdraw from the race for this seeming last straw and for the vast and growing collection of other lies and stupidities of which he is guilty, including the recent suggestion that a foreign power spy on the U.S., McCain paid homage to Humayun Khan’s sacrifice, and said Trump ought to set a better example.
“It is time for Donald Trump to set the example for our country and the future of the Republican Party,” he said. “While our Party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”
He should set a better example?
"I claim no moral superiority over Donald Trump,” McCain went on. “I have a long and well-known public and private record for which I will have to answer at the Final Judgment, and I repose my hope in the promise of mercy and the moderation of age.”
Well, if John McCain thinks the pearly gates are going to open wide for him because he supported for president a person whose ideas and policies he despises and who he knows would be bad if not disastrous for America, all in the service of his own re-election in Arizona…well, I can’t speak for St. Peter, but I don’t see it happening. Nor is this the first time McCain has put his own electoral interests ahead of those of the country. Remember, it was McCain who would have put the airhead Sarah Palin a heartbeat away -- not because he thought she would make a good vice-president or president, but because he thought her presence on the ticket would help him get elected.
The ultimate irony and insult: Trump's announcement that he will not back McCain in Arizona. So the question is: At long last, Senator McCain, what’s it going to take?
Who knows? Maybe the people of Arizona will show more courage in this election than their senior senator has, and do the right thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment