Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/07/26/john-mccain-is-the-perfect-a.html
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He’s a Republican and he votes like a Republican. What the heck are they talking about? Do they imagine that he presents himself some other way? FFS, he ran for president with Palin as his vice president. Is there some secret menu McCain branding that I’m not aware of?
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Well… yes. His brand is that of a supposed Maverick. And he always makes a grand speech about the need to stand up, think for yourself and do the right thing just before voting with Paul Ryan et al.
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Don’t forget the part where, during the 2000 Republican primary campaign, Karl Rove spread rumors in South Carolina that McCain fathered a black baby. Of course, after the election, the Maverick fell in lockstep behind GWB.
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I’m confused, i thought the vote was about debating the issue. Have i missed something?
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He’s a politician. Politicians lie. He’s no hero. Hero’s are honorable.
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The bill is complete and utter shit. Any amount of debating isn’t going to fix jack shit. McCain didn’t need to come back and make this vote happen. If he stayed out it wouldn’t have gone through and would be dead where he and his republican asshole brethren need to be.
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John’s not a short slab of dead senatorial ribs because of his health care coverage supported by US tax dollars.
His response after that miracle is to come and open up debate for making millions of US citizens’ health care disappear.
Is that basic enough for you ?
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And, as with many things GOP, also not really.
They have opened up debate on an unspecified bill about healthcare. No one knows which bill. The House bill? The first Senate bill? The second Senate bill? The Schoolhouse Rocky bill sitting on Capitol Hill?
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Not directly related to the topic at hand, but which of these are in financial trouble, like the NHS?
(For the record, I totally support universal healthcare, and the financial trouble these things face seems often intentional)
Well that input was useful. Perhaps you could clarify?
I often find myself feeling charitable towards McCain, and thinking that as much as I disagreed with him, he seemed like an honourable and decent man back when I lived in Arizona and heard more about him in local news.
And then I realized that I moved away from Arizona more than 20 years ago, and the “new” disappointing McCain is probably just who he really is.
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Senators are only supposed to vote “yes” on debating a bill if they believe that bill has enough merit to be worthy of serious consideration, even if the final form of the bill might be somewhat different.
So for example, if someone puts forward a bill to turn Yosemite Valley into a nuclear waste repository or deny voting rights to women or legalize the hunting of poor people for sport or strip tens of millions of Americans of their health coverage you vote fucking NAY.
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I find the “this process has been awful, this isn’t how we should be working” goes and makes another lock-step party vote for the process to continue. Particularly galling.
You don’t get to complain about the process while you vote as you are told to move it along.
McCain did this yesterday in very grand form.
Reichert, a congressman near me who was allowed to vote no on the bill in the house did exactly the same. He voted for it in committee, and on several procedural votes to allow Ryan to put it up on less than 1 day notice, and then complained about the process when justifying his (obviously granted by the leadership in hopes of holding his seat) no vote on the final bill.
You people control the process. If you don’t like the process your party leadership is using stop voting for it. Of course, in reality, they are just lying and don’t care about process at all.
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McCain’s true self shone through during the Iraq war when he talked fairly big about torture, but did absolutely nothing to stop it.
Nobody who was paying attention then should be the least surprised at what he did yesterday.
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Exactly; McCain’s defenders want us to look at his words while ignoring his actions. It’s like giving Thomas Jefferson credit as a great abolitionist because he made eloquent arguments against slavery even as he was buying and selling human beings (not to mention raping 14-year-old girls).
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I respectfully disagree that McCain brands himself as a maverick. I think he thinks of himself as a leader in the Republican party, not as a rogue. That label maverick has been applied to him by others. It’s badly out of date at this point, but it persists. Nothing here on johnmccain.com says “maverick.” That label and his role as a foil for Trump are more of a threat to him than anything else.
It may be the case that some people thinking for themselves come to the wrong conclusions, or at least different conclusions than us.
That is an objectively incorrect statement. His 2008 campaign literally aired an ad calling him “the original maverick.”
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His performance during the Cheney Regency was also pathetic: a victim of torture enabling America’s right to torture others. Disgusting.
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