Even if you disagreed with him on certain political issues, U.S. Senator John McCain was war hero and a great American. That’s why President Trump’s “joke” in July 2015 was so inappropriate (and would have doomed the campaign of anyone else).
That said, the Democrat/media cohort heaping praise on the late Arizona senator and Vietnam War POW who was a federal elected official for 35 years is off-putting to say the least, given the way the echo chamber treated him when he had the temerity — or audacity, as it were — to run against Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.
From PJ Media:
The media today now have pretty much only nice things to say about the late Sen. John McCain (who’s record of independence has aligned him with Obama and against the GOP on several issues, and even more importantly, against Trump), but this is in stark contrast to how they treated him when he was Barack Obama’s opponent in 2008.
It was a battle of a moderate war hero and a radical noob. McCain’s status as a war hero was somehow not as important as Obama’s community organizing and candidness about his smoking marijuana.
The Arizona Republican apparently thought his status as a bipartisan maverick would buy him goodwill in media precincts, but that was a wholly naive expectation.
From The Daily Caller:
“While campaigning for his 2008 president run, McCain was portrayed as an extremist, receiving blame for the racial and political tension seemingly brewing in American politics.”
In case you were wondering, bipartisanship means accepting the liberal narrative in its entirety and caving into the the Democrats’ legislative demands.
“McCain soon developed a reputation as a ‘maverick,’ defying his party whenever he thought it was veering too far to the right (or, critics said, whenever it suited his own ambitions),” Breitbart News recalled.
Given the feud between the two men, which included McCain’s subsequent unwillingness to vote for the full Obamacare repeal, that the McCain family would not invite President Trump is perhaps understandable, but not extending an invitation to Sarah Palin is entirely another matter. Contrary to revisionist history, the only time that the McCain campaign gained serious traction was when the senator named the-then Alaska governor as his VP running mate.
Moreover, if Palin had been a pro-choice Democrat with the same exact background, the media coverage would have glowing.
Parenthetically, some of the Palin bashers who ran McCain’s Straight Talk Express presidential campaign into a ditch are now cashing MSNBC paychecks with their sanctimonious Never Trump rhetoric.
Similarly, when Mitt Romney ran against Obama in 2012, he was subject to ridicule (even including the prophetic warning about Russia). Given his current positioning as part of the Never Trump contingent, Romney is now regarded as a great statesman by the media.
If you were following politics in 2008, you may recall that Sen. McCain suspended his campaign and returned to Washington in the midst of the subprime mortgage crisis. By publicly considering canceling the debate with Obama, he was in total control of the news cycle.
The debate went forward, and with a national audience watching, McCain could have said that while this was a crisis of huge proportions, he was unwilling to stick the American taxpayer with the $700 billion bill for Wall Street corruption known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).
The Republican nominee could have won the election that night, but of course, he along with 73 other senators including Obama voted for the massive bailout of the financial sector. While McCain received 46 percent of the popular vote, he only managed 173 electoral votes in the loss.
“Obama, too, voted for TARP, but by the time they arrived at the first presidential debate a few days later, there was no longer any real difference between the candidates. Obama went on to win the election easily,” Breitbart added.
The subtext of the praiseworthy coverage of Sen. John McCain may also be another vehicle for the media to continue its 24/7 vendetta against President Trump.
Added: Joe Concha of The Hill discussed the media’s selective memory about John McCain:
“But the respect and honesty we’re seeing from the 2018 media is a far cry from the Arizona Republican’s treatment in 2008. McCain was labeled as a racist, a get-off-my-lawn grouch with a divisive temper, someone whose health should be scrutinized because of his age…
“McCain deserves the praise. He deserves a big sendoff. But it’s difficult not to ask this question: If the senator had gotten along with Trump, perhaps voted for the ‘skinny repeal’ of ObamaCare that he so famously shot down with one vote change at the 11th hour, hadn’t publicly called Trump ‘disgraceful,’ would we see this level of reverence we’ve witnessed and will continue to witness this weekend?…
“For many in the media…McCain became the villain the moment he clinched the 2008 Republican nomination not because of who he was but because his opponent was the overwhelming favorite of the press.”
