John McCain ...

It’s time to put John McCain into perspective.

When he finally passes on the obits will probably be generally glowing.

Just as they were for Robert Byrd, a one-time ardent segregationist and proud member of the Klan. And for Teddy Kennedy, a philandering weasel who killed a young female staffer and tried to cover it up. And for so many others the media have covered for.   

I’d like to interject a bit of reality about McCain before the media covers for him.

We all know the media love to quote John McCain. Always have.    

He’s their hero. The maverick. The Republican that likes to trash fellow Republicans. The Republican that absolutely hates Trump. 

He’s up there with Susan Collins, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker – “brave” Republicans willing to stand up to conservatives and fight for the same things Democrats support.  That imbues them with virtue in the eyes of our media. You’ll see them quoted often, usually after the claim that “even some leading Republicans disagree” with whatever Republicans generally support. 

But McCain always get the most coverage.    

Everybody knows McCain’s backstory – graduate of the Naval Academy, son and grandson of two 4-star admirals, and a decorated (Bronze Star) jet jock shot down in Vietnam. He was held prisoner for years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton and in other camps where he was repeatedly tortured. As the son of an admiral, he was offered release several times but refused unless all his fellow prisoners were also released.  He was finally repatriated in 1973.

He returned as a bona fide war hero. No doubt about it – he was a hero. 

That’s the story everybody knows. But there’s more, much more after that.

After McCain returned from Vietnam, he divorced his first wife – Carol, who had been a beautiful swimsuit model when he married her in 1965.

While McCain was in Vietnam, Carol had a horrible car accident that nearly killed her. After more than 20 surgeries to save her, she was severely disfigured by the time he returned. He came back not to the ravishing beauty he left but a woman struggling to walk again.

He divorced her, as she said, because “John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25.” About a month after his divorce he married the daughter of a leading Anheuser-Busch distributor. Her father was a multimillionaire with strong political connections, which helped McCain.

Later, McCain was also helped by one Charles Keating – a sleaze ball banker who played a big role in the savings and loan crisis in the late 80s and early 90s.

Perhaps you remember that Keating ran Lincoln Savings and Loan. Lincoln collapsed in 1989, at a cost of over $3 billion to the federal government. Lincoln bondholders – some 23,000 – were defrauded in the process and many investors lost their life savings.

When Lincoln collapsed, it was learned that five sitting U.S. Senators had received campaign contributions from Keating, totaling about $1.3 million. That spawned a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into charges that Keating leaned on those Senators to intervene on his behalf with the FHLBB regulators to call off the dogs.

It was abundantly clear that’s exactly what Keating expected in return for his money. It was also clear that these beneficiaries of his campaign contributions were told in no uncertain terms by Keating what he expected them to do for the money.    

Keating was quoted at the time as saying: "One question, among many raised in recent weeks, had to do with whether my financial support in any way influenced several political figures to take up my cause. I want to say in the most forceful way I can: I certainly hope so."

McCain was one of those Senators. While he was eventually cleared of the most serious charges, he was nonetheless found to have exercised “poor judgement.”  

Keating was sentenced to five years in prison. McCain continued his political career.

Oh, as one result of the Keating Five scandal McCain coauthored the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation.

With that, suddenly, McCain went from being under review for questionable ethics himself, to a crusader for enforced ethics on campaign funding. He also became a “statesman” who “reached across the aisle” for coauthoring that bill with Russ Feingold, a Democrat. 

McCain-Feingold was a joke. While it mandated disclosure of campaign contributions from wealthy individuals and corporations, it unintentionally, perhaps but maybe not, encouraged the growth of “soft money” sources, which had no disclosure requirements.

Guess where donors went?  Can you say political action committees? 

The flood of undocumented dollars into PACs had the same result as before: pressure on politicians to do what big-money supporters wanted.  The difference was that now those soft-money groups tended to be much more extreme and narrow focused. And donors didn’t have to be identified. 

If you wonder why the airwaves are flooded with special-interest ads filled with half-truths and often outright lies during campaigns, sponsored by groups with misleading names designed to hide their motives, thank John McCain. He’s your guy. 

Now, all this is not to say McCain isn’t a real American hero from the Vietnam War era. He absolutely is. And he fully deserves our thanks and respect for what he did back then.  But all that happened decades ago.  He’s been riding on it ever since. 

In recent years John McCain has devolved into a shameless publicity whore. A political opportunist of the first order. Someone more interested in fawning press coverage than results.

It’s a pity this John McCain been all about himself and less about doing good for the country and the people of Arizona in particular. His state has serious problems with illegal immigrants, criminal gangs, and drugs crossing its borders.  Yet John McCain has argued for giving amnesty to illegals, and against a border security wall and enhanced prosecution of illegals.   

So who does John McCain represent?

Simple. Himself. 

Outside of being a contrarian just to be different there isn’t much else to him. I’m not sure he strongly believes in anything. That became crystal clear when he ran for President. He couldn’t make up his mind whether he was a liberal Republican or a conservative Democrat. Or what. Nobody knew what he actually stood for because he didn’t know, either. 

That’s how he lost to a first-term Senator with zero legislative accomplishments.

I believe he still has that problem.

When he recently faced a more conservative primary challenger, he decided to brush up on his conservative bona fides. It was all just for show. He’s done this time and time again. 

People should remember this same John McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts, then voted to extend them, then voted for the Trump tax cuts. He also voted against repealing ObamaCare. He tried to push through amnesty for illegal immigrants with Democrats. 

He wavers whenever it’s politically expedient. 

During the most recent Presidential campaign he showed an especially nasty and vindictive side; a side he continued to show long after Trump was elected. And continues today. 

Of course, McCain being McCain, he always claims he’s only looking out for the country.

In today’s WSJ, he has a lengthy op-ed piece about how evil Putin is. Duh.  But in that piece he recounts why he gave the infamous Russian dossier to James Comey. McCain claims he only did this – not out of petty hatred of Trump – but because he feared Russia could use it to compromise Trump. As usual, it was always about saving the country.  

Yep, that’s his story. Classic McCain.       

Lately he’s been mucking around in the hearings for the new CIA Director, despite her exceptional qualifications, because he’s opposed to “torture” he claims happened on her watch.  Mind you, that “torture” is a matter of interpretation; it was actually waterboarding of three – count ‘em, three – high-value prisoners captured after 9/11. 

Democrats loved that he was voting no.  So did the media.

Most recently he’s told folks he wants Obama, Bush, and Clinton at his funeral, but not Trump.  Leave it to McCain to try to grab the spotlight once again with a stupid, spiteful gesture.

But that’s who he is.  

John McCain has been diagnosed with a brain tumor that will probably take his life fairly soon.  I am sorry for him and his family. I don’t want to be kicking a man while he’s down. 

He should resign from the Senate now, nonetheless.  Honestly, he should have done that a long time ago when he first got his diagnosis. I’m pretty sure he won’t. Not because he has unfinished business in the Senate, which he clearly doesn’t.

He won’t resign for the very same reason he ran for re-election the last time, even though he knew then he was gravely ill and probably wouldn’t live to finish out his term. But he refused to give up the limelight, even though it was well past time for him to leave.  

It’s very sad.  Actually pathetic.

When he finally passes, he will be lionized by the media as a real “straight shooter,” a “voice of reason” in the Republican Party. His Democrat pals will deeply mourn his passing as one of the last Republican “statesmen” of our time. 

Glossed over will be who John McCain really was.

The same way the media glossed over Robert Byrd and Teddy Kennedy’s sordid pasts.