by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Arizona's volcanic senator, John McCain, may not be long for this world, but that doesn't mean he is done erupting. He made news earlier this week when his new book noted that the senator considered his choice of Sarah Palin to be his 2008 running mate to have been a "mistake" - a remark that Palin conceded was a "gut-punch" - and those fighting Palin's obviously know their "gut-punches!" Then McCain turned his ire on Donald Trump and had his family announce that Trump would not be welcome at his funeral, although George W. Bush and Barack Obama would be.
And finally McCain grabbed a few more headlines when he commented on Trump's nominee to head the CIA, Gina Haspel, and noted that her refusal to label torture of prisoners as "immoral" disqualified her to run the spy agency. McCain, a former long-term prisoner of war who was tortured on numerous occasions by the North Vietnamese, is an expert witness when it comes to torture. The poor man knows what he is talking about. (Torture often provides false or inaccurate information because the person being abused is so anxious for the pain to end that he will say what he believes his captors want to hear - whether it is true or not. And when a country utilizes torture, it has ceded the moral high ground and created a situation where enemies will feel justified in using it as well. Using torture on our foes makes it inevitable that they will use it on our own people as well.)
So John McCain is against the use of torture - and he is against Gina Haspbel heading the Central Intelligence Agency because of her refusal to call the practice out as immoral. And in normal times Americans would respect the rights of a dying man to get a few things off of his chest.
But these are not normal times. Today we are living in a world where rage, intolerance, and even ridicule seem to be the standards through which discourse is filtered. When the President of the United States rants and raves, sometimes in almost total incoherence, and even stoops to mocking people with disabilities, is it any wonder that civility so quickly lands in the crapper.
There have been a couple of outrageous responses to McCain's opposition to the Haspel nomination, both modeled on what a writer at Daily Kos referred to as Trump's "performative cruelty." First, in a nod to Trump's penchant for name-calling and lying, retired Air Force Lt. General (and birther) Thomas McInerney said on Fox Business yesterday that torture works - "It worked on John McCain. That's why they call him 'Songbird John'." A claim that is as preposterous as it is false. Fox announced after the interview that the network will no longer be using the analytic services of McInerney.
And then a relatively unknown White House aide, Kelly Sadler, grabbed her piece of the limelight when she announced in a staff meeting that McCain's opposition to the Haspel nomination didn't matter because he's "dying anyway." Sadler's remark pissed off McCain's wife Cindy to a point that she felt compelled to respond on Twitter reminding the crude Sadler that McCain has a family - seven kids and five grandchildren - apparently none of whom were amused by Sadler's ugly remark. So far there has been no word of any official reprimand of Kelly Sadler.
But the McCain family should not take any of this disparagement personally. It is all just "performative cruelty" in the style and manner of the world's greatest showman - Donald John Trump. And even after Johnny Mac has left the stage, the show will go on!
God help us all.
Citizen Journalist
Arizona's volcanic senator, John McCain, may not be long for this world, but that doesn't mean he is done erupting. He made news earlier this week when his new book noted that the senator considered his choice of Sarah Palin to be his 2008 running mate to have been a "mistake" - a remark that Palin conceded was a "gut-punch" - and those fighting Palin's obviously know their "gut-punches!" Then McCain turned his ire on Donald Trump and had his family announce that Trump would not be welcome at his funeral, although George W. Bush and Barack Obama would be.
And finally McCain grabbed a few more headlines when he commented on Trump's nominee to head the CIA, Gina Haspel, and noted that her refusal to label torture of prisoners as "immoral" disqualified her to run the spy agency. McCain, a former long-term prisoner of war who was tortured on numerous occasions by the North Vietnamese, is an expert witness when it comes to torture. The poor man knows what he is talking about. (Torture often provides false or inaccurate information because the person being abused is so anxious for the pain to end that he will say what he believes his captors want to hear - whether it is true or not. And when a country utilizes torture, it has ceded the moral high ground and created a situation where enemies will feel justified in using it as well. Using torture on our foes makes it inevitable that they will use it on our own people as well.)
So John McCain is against the use of torture - and he is against Gina Haspbel heading the Central Intelligence Agency because of her refusal to call the practice out as immoral. And in normal times Americans would respect the rights of a dying man to get a few things off of his chest.
But these are not normal times. Today we are living in a world where rage, intolerance, and even ridicule seem to be the standards through which discourse is filtered. When the President of the United States rants and raves, sometimes in almost total incoherence, and even stoops to mocking people with disabilities, is it any wonder that civility so quickly lands in the crapper.
There have been a couple of outrageous responses to McCain's opposition to the Haspel nomination, both modeled on what a writer at Daily Kos referred to as Trump's "performative cruelty." First, in a nod to Trump's penchant for name-calling and lying, retired Air Force Lt. General (and birther) Thomas McInerney said on Fox Business yesterday that torture works - "It worked on John McCain. That's why they call him 'Songbird John'." A claim that is as preposterous as it is false. Fox announced after the interview that the network will no longer be using the analytic services of McInerney.
And then a relatively unknown White House aide, Kelly Sadler, grabbed her piece of the limelight when she announced in a staff meeting that McCain's opposition to the Haspel nomination didn't matter because he's "dying anyway." Sadler's remark pissed off McCain's wife Cindy to a point that she felt compelled to respond on Twitter reminding the crude Sadler that McCain has a family - seven kids and five grandchildren - apparently none of whom were amused by Sadler's ugly remark. So far there has been no word of any official reprimand of Kelly Sadler.
But the McCain family should not take any of this disparagement personally. It is all just "performative cruelty" in the style and manner of the world's greatest showman - Donald John Trump. And even after Johnny Mac has left the stage, the show will go on!
God help us all.
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