The Post-Death Whitewash

“Freedom is just frosting/on somebody else’s cake.” Langston Hughes

John McCain was a war hero, a giant in the United States Senate, a saint, and, of course, a maverick, whatever that means, or so you would believe from the recent fawning mainstream media coverage. This sort of post-death whitewash isn’t unusual. When Richard Nixon died, the corporate media and a phalanx of politicians closed ranks to pay homage to the man who bombed Cambodia and inflicted the Watergate scandal on the nation. When a prominent politician dies, memories get very hazy very fast.

Here’s what I will remember about John McCain. First, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, a country that posed no credible threat to the United States. Even when the hoped for cakewalk became a quagmire, McCain supported the greatest military blunder in American history. I’m also sure McCain’s pulse quickened any time there was talk of bombing Iran or when the US actually bombed some other country.

Always a reliable and enthusiastic cheerleader for American empire, McCain was a true believer in American exceptionalism and our divine right to order and rule the world for our own benefit; and if that domination came on the back of a cruise missile, all the better.   

But what will always and forever color my perception of John McCain was his cynical and opportunistic selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate in 2008. McCain was in his late 60’s then, and for him to potentially place Sarah Palin that close to the throne was an act of manifest irresponsibility. In some respects, the cartoonish Palin paved the road for the buffoonish Donald J. Trump. Like the Orange Menace, Palin celebrated ignorance, coarseness, and pushed simplistic solutions to complex problems. Like Trump today, Palin was all about the soundbite, the media moment, you betcha. By choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain debased himself and his campaign. Run with a dingbat and you’re likely to lose.

It’s no surprise that Trump turned petty when McCain passed, messing around about flying the flag at half staff. In the first place, Trump wasn’t the center of attention, the subject of fond reminices and accolades from the political elite. Second, unlike most of his GOP colleagues, McCain never dropped down on bended knee and kissed Trump’s hand or pledged his eternal loyalty to the Donald, so that made the senator from Arizona suspect. Trump, the Vietnam War draft evader, ridiculed McCain, the Navy pilot shot down over Hanoi and captured. In Trump’s fantasy universe, real heroes never allow themselves to be captured, but if they are, they overpower their captors and escape, like Rambo.

So, McCain will be mythologized by the political class, including ex-presidents W. Bush and Barack Obama, and the wooden Christian warrior, Mike Pence. His virtues will be touted universally, his flaws forgotten. Senator, warrior, patriot, true American hero. A flag-draped coffin, a burial filled with pomp and circumstance, and then the empire will totter on toward dissolution.