Sunday, August 26, 2018

The (Spoiled) Children's Hour


Funny, I'm listening to "Intelligence Squared," a debate on the question "Social Media is good for democracy."  And the first response on Twitter to Barack Obama's post is this:

Is that kind of hyperbole "good" for democracy?  Is it, even, new to democracy?  (No.)  Then again, is this good for democracy?

“Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and other White House aides advocated for an official statement,” The Post said Sunday. They’d hoped to honor the decorated Vietnam War POW for his years of service to the nation in the Senate and call him a “hero.”

But according to current and former White House aides, “Trump told aides he wanted to post a brief tweet instead, and the statement praising McCain’s life was not released.”

The original plan was to release a statement that was drafted before McCain passed. Sanders and other edited the final version so that it would be ready.

The White House press poll emailed the text of the tweet and no other statement has been emailed to press.
I'm not posting anything praising the life of John McCain because I'm not a hypocrite.  I remember him as an ideologue before the GOP ate the monkey brains, as Charlie Pierce puts it; a hard right-winger who became a centrist because of Senators like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee (although McCain showed up in a list of the 15 Most Conservative Senators in 2013).  A "maverick" because he played that role to reporters, not because he was stalwart about his principles.  He's praised for his rebuke of a supporter demonizing Obama in 2008; but it ain't that simple.  His most "maverick" vote was to snuff Trump's attempt to kill Obamacare, and I think he did that more out of animus to Trump than sympathy for the Affordable Care Act.*

But that's my opinion, and I mention it just to be honest.  I don't despise the man, and now he is dead, and honors that accrue to his name are due for recognition.  The White House, however, won't even go that far.


That's all they've had to say.

“It’s atrocious,” said Mark Corallo, who once served as a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team. “At a time like this, you would expect more of an American president when you’re talking about the passing of a true American hero.”

I agree, and have no problem praising John McCain as a true American hero, flaws and all.  Donald Trump, on the other hand, can't even let the man's name pass his lips.   We berate 5 year olds for such behavior.


At this point, Trump is pretty much on par with the Westboro Baptist Church, except nobody's heard from them in some time, and nobody misses them.  And by the way, I got that picture from responses in Trump's twitter feed.  Maybe social media can be good for democracy....

(Yeah, it's that bad)

*I've had a bellyful of "both-siderism" tributes that declare we need 90 more Senators like John McCain.  90 more conservative senators, they always mean, because the "right" thing to do was to agree with the way McCain voted (most of the time), not with his maverick-y posturing before he voted.  Feh.  We could do with quite a bit less ideology, but when you can point out the 15 Democratic Senators who are as hard left as Cruz, Lee, Hatch, Cornyn, and Rubio are hard-right (to pick just 5), I'll start to believe the problem is on both sides of the aisle.  Until then, all you've got is Bernie Sanders, and he's really not as defiant as Mike Lee or Rand Paul.
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