“My
eyes collide head on
with
stuffed graveyardsfalse goals I scuff
at pettiness that plays so rough
walk upside down inside hand cuffs
kick my legs to crash it off
say O.K., I've had enough
what else can you show me”
----Bob Dylan “It's Alright Ma, I'm Only
Bleeding”
And so it was, with this man from Arizona. For John
McCain seemed to always be asking, as he confronted the madness about
him, “What else can you show me?” There were those years in the
Hanoi Hilton, and that time on the campaign trail when confronted
with a follower who accused his opponent Barack Obama of being a
Muslim and being 'unamerican'. McCain would flash that wry smile,
dig in and hold his ground, setting the record straight.
I've been a critic of John McCain, for while he had a
well-earned reputation as a 'maverick' prone to doing in Sarah
Palin's words 'mavericky things', his reputation was remarkable
mostly because these are unremarkable times. Gone are the days when
one could reach across the aisle and fashion public policy with
broad, or even narrow, bipartisan support. Our politics are now so
poor that to pass even bipartisan electoral reform is now seen as the
work of giants.
McCain had his moments, and from reports would readily
confess them. Surely, his involvement with Kenneth Keating leading
to McCain being tarred as one of the “Keating 5” in the Savings
and Loan scandals of the 1980's stands out as one of his great moral
lapses. Unlike other Senators, Cranston, and Don Reagle among them,
McCain and fellow Senator John Glenn survived the episode. But it
would haunt him the rest of his life. Then, of course, there was
Palin and the sorry decision to jerk her up from certain and well
deserved oblivion and put her upon the national and international
stage. John, like all of us, had his flaws.
Nevertheless, he survived and went on to capture the
Republican presidential nomination and become the elder statesman of
his party. It was McCain who, when confronted with stripping
millions of people of their health insurance, stood on the floor of
the Senate and cast the deciding vote to keep Obama's signature
legacy.
John died a week ago, after suffering a long bout with
cancer. Godspeed, John McCain, the nation mourns.
“And
you read your Emily Dickenson
and
I, my Robert Frostand we note our place with book markers
that measure what we've lost”
----- Paul Simon “The Dangling
Conversation”
Indeed, the national grief is one normally reserved for
presidents. And, had he not the misfortune of gaining the Republican
nomination in the middle of a Republican financial crisis, he would
well have become our 44th president. But confronted with
the complete mess made by 'Ole Two-Cows' Bush the nation had grown
weary of Republican maladministration and turned to a fresh new face.
2008 was not a good year for Republicans and John McCain and,
perhaps, the nation are the poorer for it. One is left to ponder
what would have become the knuckle-dragging 'bucket of deplorables'
had McCain triumphed. The answer was revealed at that campaign rally
when he was confronted by a clearly disturbed follower rambling
incoherently about Obama's alleged Muslim religion and terrorist
connections. One couldn't fault the lady, she had been spoon-fed
this nonsense by the idiot-wrong, the social media, hate radio, and
the likes of Glenn Beck. McCain, confronted with the madness, simply
flashed that wry smile and went about setting the record straight by
coming to the defense of his opponent much to the dismay of many in
the crowd. Here was an act of patriotic decency otherwise totally
lacking in the Rescumlickan Party today.
“Don't look to me to take his place”, South Carolina
Lindsay Graham pleaded as he delivered one of the many eulogies in
honor of the fallen. Graham revealed more than he knew, for it was
true enough. Graham and his ilk cannot be relied upon to stand up to
the madness about them. This much was revealed when, as McCain drew
his last breath, Graham was announcing to the world that Jeff
Sessions ' time as Attorney General is about to expire and that the
'president' needs someone in whom he has confidence—confidence
which can only be interpreted to be confidence that the new Attorney
General would swiftly move to end all the investigations into all the
corruption of this administration. No, there is no one to take the
place of John McCain. Not Susan Collins, not Jeff Flake, not Bob
Corker, and certainly not Lindsay Graham. There isn't a spine among
them.
The national grief is one normally reserved for
presidents...
This has rankled our most petty, most insecure, and the
smallest of our chief magistrates. Railing in rage against all the
media coverage surrounding the passing of John McCain, Disgustus, in
a pique of petty revenge, refused to lower the White House flag to
half-mast. Then, besieged by howls of protest from governors,
Congressmen and women, media, and nearly two score high ranking
administration officials, our petty little president finally
relented. Several times, with the flag seen moving up and down the
pole as Disgustus would be called upon to do the decent thing and
then, alone with his cheeseburger, relent as he allowed his inner
demons to once again prevail. Finally, after two days, he choked out
a statement of condolence to the family of the Senator but finding
very few words of praise for a man who had become a national icon.
For indeed John McCain amid all his faults was, in the
end, everything that Caesar Disgustus is not. Principled,
compassionate, intelligent, flexible, courageous and honorable. A man who could
not only see beyond himself but a man who embraced the panorama
before him. Nothing can be said about John McCain that one can
attribute to the miserably petty little man that now occupies the
office and the honor that John McCain so richly deserved. John
McCain would always surprise and show us something. John McCain is
gone. As we are left now to “walk about inside handcuffs”,
Caesar Disgustus has nothing else to show us. Except, perhaps, a
measure of what we've lost.
“An'
Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”
Impeach
and Imprison.
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