John McCain diagnosed with brain cancer

Ok, thanks for clarifying.

In a normal world, that’s politics (see Strollen’s post on political presidential campaigns) and it’s up to voters to suss out the truth. In the age of instant answers (google!) that’s not too great a burden. (Alas, we also live in an age where people care more about how many Facebook friends they have than being engaged citizens.)

But we do not right now live in a normal world. I’m not going to take the time compile a list, but goggle legislation proposed and passed by Republicans that isn’t designed to help the donor class. Almost all their legislation directly (or indirectly) harm families, teachers, people of color, consumers, labor, the LGBT community, or the environment. (I would argue their stance on climate change alone puts them in the vile column; that is going to cause harm to hundreds of millions, if not billions of people, exacerbate the already occurring mass extinction, and alter the climate for tens of thousands of years.)

We don’t live in science fantasy novels or movies. There is no Hydra organization or army of Sauron to confront. There is purposeful disinformation, deceit and lies. Voter suppression, gutting environmental regs, tax policy, ICE terrorizing immigrants (or even people who “look” like immigrants) the attacks by Nunes and Jordan on civil servants in the Justice Department and the FBI … the list is nearly endless. (There are links all over this forum pointing this out.) This is not a “narrative” by the left to discredit the Republican party. These are facts. If you dispute it then onus is on you to prove these are well-meaning policies and that people like your family who support trump are not complicit.

Strangely, it did not feel like such an opportunity at the time! 🤔

If in a discussion like this, someone were to ask me ‘What was Obama’s concrete legacy?’, I would say ‘The Affordable Care Act and the wholesale adoption of the idea that everyone should have some form of reasonable access to health care’ (as one example). I would not say ‘use the google’, not if what I was advancing was the idea that Obama was unique among Democrats, a world-historical figure with a lasting legacy.

To be fair, I think it’s easier to quickly highlight something a President has accomplished / pushed as opposed to one of a hundred senators. I think a fairer comparison would be a Ted Kennedy or something from Joe Biden’s years in the Senate.

Was he ever a principled maverick? The problem with that idea is that even in his early career he was a reliable vote for Republican issues. He had periods of less reliability, but they were largely triggered by ambition or animus: He was a less conservative vote when he wanted to run for President, when he was angry at Bush for savaging him in South Carolina, and after Trump attacked him.

Thanks for getting directly to the point I’m failing to land.

This is an awesome photo taken by Andy Harnik for the AP.

I thought it was some photoshop job, but it’s actually McCain’s son reflected in the memorial while Cindy McCain lays down a wreath.

Whatever your opinions of the man, that is one helluva photo.

I just read this opinion piece in the WaPo and I couldn’t agree more:

No one will remember those men, except as cautionary tales of how not to lead. They will be cast into the dustbin of history, mere footnotes of a time when too many men were cowards.

The best of the worst. Still part of the worst.

That’s a great photo, thanks for posting it.

I popped in merely to post the above tweet/clip snipped from the funeral and then exfiltrate P & R as quickly as possible. Then I saw this back and forth (I am not singling Scott out here, I just grabbed his comments as “symbolic” of the myriad others).

I won’t stay long, I will go back to muting the thread and let all of you good friends of one another (you are my friends too…I love all you folks, and I mean that) go back to wounding each other deeply in your exercise of tribalism while I mute and disappear this category (again). But I did want to at least speak to this. In DoD, Military and Intelligence circles, he is certainly thought of as principled, ethical, and a maverick, with a lasting legacy.

EE PLEB NISTA!

“So much of our politics can seem small and mean and petty. Trafficking in bombast and insult, phony controversies and manufactured outrage. It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough, but is instead born of fear. John called on us to be bigger than that, to be better than that. Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be, but what will happen in all the other days will depend on what you do today. What better way to honor John McCain than follow his example.” – President Barack Obama

Watching Obama and Biden speak, and even Bush… Trump is just so far from presidential in any possible way. We really picked the worst of us.

I think that’s perhaps the best thing about McCain. He was flawed, and didn’t always live up to the bar he set… but he at least put that ideal out there. He at least paid it lip service, and sometimes did good to try to live up to it.

I feel like so often these days, some of those ideals aren’t even considered worthy of striving for. Like, Trump for instance, doesn’t even pretend to try to be any of those things.

I’m still embarrassed by my attempt on election night to gracefully accept what had happened and give him and his voters a little benefit of the doubt and see how he’d be as a president now that the election was behind him and he’ll start acting the way presidents have always acted, namely leadership through unity rather than division. Welp, that lasted about 10 hours.

I don’t care for him.