RIP. We'll miss you

He wasn’t as crappy as most Republicans.

RIP. John McCain

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Except for the way he voted, which was in lockstep with all the others.

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I appreciate his vote to keep Obamacare alive, and his attempts at campaign finance reform, though I’m not sure how much of either of those was theater. I’m pretty sure the big vote to save Obamacare was staged so Republicans didn’t have to kill a program that was important to their states but could keep face, and he could maintain his maverick image.

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You are right.

You are also right.

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It was a mule!

Edit to add:

I have no love for McCain; it would have been a disaster if he were elected. Maybe more of a disaster than Trump, because at least Trump is more isolationist than warmonger.

That said, he stood up to Trump at a time when very few Republicans were doing so, and actually did so in a way that suited actions to deeds, by standing up for the ACA.

That one moment of having a spine doesn’t excuse or erase the warmongering, but neither does his bad actions erase the fact that he probably saved a good many lives with that one vote.

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I think you mean “Twelve! TWELVE! TWELVE!!!”

I acknowledge that the image is from the movie, not from a stage production.

That said, the stage production takes precedence, so IT WAS A MULE.

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Ah.

So in other words, you are a supporter of TRADITION!

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“Was Ihr Theaterleute eure Tradition nennt, das ist eure Bequemlichkeit und Schlamperei.”

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It’s also quite catchy.

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Everything on McCain reminds me of the discussions about misogyny and racism, and the expectation of cookies for not sneering at other people.

Because honestly, all the laudatory things being brought up are just occasions where he rose up to the minimum baseline for human decency. Not all the time. Not for things like war with Iran which, to be clear, would make the amount of death and suffering from an ACA repeal or Trump-managed hurricane look small. But occasionally. And maybe that makes him a life-safer, and the conscience of congress, but then we should know they’re much fainter praise than they sound.

I am not happy to have a man die of cancer, but in pace does not suit him. Requiescat in bello.

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I agree. I felt like a lot of his image was just for show and when it came down to it, he was like a lot of other Republicans. I think his image was useful to the Republicans when they didn’t want a vote to really go through, and then it’d be negotiated in advance that he’d come in and vote with the Democrats. During his last run for president, I was so over him. Still, compared to most Republicans, he seemed to have a small soul inside of him.

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The big difference being, unlike most of the major players now, he’d actually been to war.

I don’t think his war record can be questioned – not is it being questioned by anyone worthy of respect. His political record is a different story.

I know I’ve mentioned Churchill recently, but I’m going to again. There seem to be large swathes of people who can accept his was instrumental to Allied war success in WWII, but that his WWI career and his career as a peacetime politician were not great (in the case of WWI, awful).

Why can’t we manage this with other politicians?

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Well, on the plus side, John McCain finally did something useful.

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This seems like a pretty good (and surprisingly well-balanced) take:

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Of course.

Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as…

as…

Huh. I had a simile all worked out for that, but it has completely slipped my mind.

Ah well, you get the idea.

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I guess she’s doing one more tour?

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