The canonization of John McCain: Media, political establishment turn warmonger into saint
1 September 2018
“I hated my enemies even before they held me captive because hate sustained me in my devotion to their complete destruction and helped me overcome the virtuous human impulse to recoil in disgust from what had to be done by my hand.”—John McCain on the Vietnam War, April 2001
“However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that will be lost when war claims its wages from us. Shed a tear, and then get on with the business of killing our enemies as quickly as we can, and as ruthlessly as we must.”—John McCain, October 2001
The American media and political establishment are in the middle of a five-day exercise in moral hypocrisy, cant and myth-making surrounding the death of Republican Senator John McCain. The operation involves nearly every news channel, newspaper publication and politician, Democrat and Republican, following a common script in preparation ever since McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago—John McCain, the “American hero,” the “warrior,” the “maverick,” the likes of which the world may never see again.
On Thursday, a ceremony was held in Arizona featuring speeches by former Vice President Joe Biden and others, concluding with the playing of Frank Sinatra’s, “My Way.” From there, McCain’s body was flown by military aircraft to Washington, where it lay in state in the rotunda of the Capitol building yesterday, a distinction accorded to only 30 other people. McCain’s casket was placed on the wooden catafalque originally built for President Abraham Lincoln after his assassination in 1865—only one of the many political obscenities associated with…