It's not politics, it's personal

I occasionally don't agree with Sen. John McCain on policy issues, but it doesn't hinder one iota my enormous respect for his service to our country. To be honest, I'm not sure where I align politically with President Donald Trump given his coarse behavior often overshadows any meandering he may offer on policy.

With all that said, I'm definitely with Sen. McCain on this one. 

The ailing Arizona Republican, who has brain cancer, is organizing his funeral – and close associates have told the White House that Trump will not be invited.

Instead, Vice President Mike Pence, who served with McCain in Congress, will be asked to attend the service, the New York Times reported Saturday. The ceremony will be held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

A stream of politicians, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, have been visiting McCain at his Arizona ranch and a nearby hospital in recent weeks.

Trump’s long-running feud with McCain has roots in the early days of the 2016 presidential race. The senator criticized Trump for disparaging Mexican immigrants in the June 2015 speech in which he declared his candidacy.

Three weeks later, Trump called McCain “incompetent” and dismissed his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“He’s not a war hero,” Trump told an Iowa crowd. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”

The personal barbs toward McCain really flew from Trumpkins when the Arizona senator essentially cast the deciding vote to kill the "skinny repeal" of Obamacare last July. Trump himself mocked McCain's "thumbs down" gesture in reference to that vote. That was especially despicable given McCain can barely lift his arms due to the torture he endured while a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Whether you like McCain personally or disagree with him politically, few can deny that he is (for better or worse) a convicted politician. So the idea that he voted to kill the "skinny repeal" just to stick it to Trump is (to be charitable) a stretch.

If McCain were really out to defy Trump (or, dare I say, RESIST), why did he vote for the "nuclear option" in the confirmation process of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court? McCain is as old school a senator as there is. Doing away with centuries of tradition was not something in which he was eager to partake, but he realized how irrational the Senate Democrats had behaved in their blocking a qualified jurist like Gorsuch. So I ask again: if his sole purpose in his remaining time in the U.S. Senate was to ding Trump, why did he support the president's hand-picked SCOTUS nominee?

Same thing can be said for tax reform. This has been the crown jewel of what has happened thus far in Trump's first term. McCain was very deliberate in considering the package and ultimately decided it would be a benefit to his constituents. The fact Trump supported it and was involved in crafting the legislation was a moot point.

At the end of the day, McCain is perfectly willing to have policy/political differences with any elected official while still respecting the individual. However, it's clear Trump is not hard-wired that way. He's still bitter over the fact McCain denied him a legislative victory with his scuttling of the Obamacare repeal. So why would McCain want at his funeral an individual who demeans his time as a P.O.W. as well as loathes him for doing his job the way he's always done it?

So for those of you who are using this story as a way to further impugn McCain's character? Jonah Goldberg sums it beautifully:

I have political disagreements — from quibbles to more significant — with John McCain. But all of these self-described conservatives using the man’s funeral wishes to piss on his whole life just to prove their love of Trump are debasing themselves. It’s grotesque.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) May 7, 2018

Yup.

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