The Media’s Crocodile Tears for Senator McCain Doesn’t Erase Their Past Demonization of Him

[MayhemMonkey]

Bullshit.

Senator McCain was a respectable Senator who put his country above himself and his party

 

[Seaside]

It was difficult to make it through that Biden eulogy talking about McCain and his code and how honourable he was.

His wife stayed true to him for 5 years during his capture. She was severely crippled in a car accident in the second year yet still fought hard campaigning and raising funds for his release. Once he returned he fucked other women behind her back and then dumped her because she was a cripple. He admitted to all of this.

How can anybody with a straight face call such a degenerate an honourable man. Disgusting.

Sorry but you dont know that she was loyal. Nobody does except her and whoever she may have cheated with. That is the cold truth.

He was the main proponent behind the total chaos in Libya and Syria.

He helped bring back slavery to North Africa and the mass murder of children in the Levant by inciting toppling of dictators.

If there is a god he will answer for this.

He war mongered for war against Russia and was a rabid russian hawk. At some point this veteran went full 100% militar industrial complex. Wanted every war or military conflict. Only ones he got right recently is being anti north korea and iran. Leave syria alone for now and libya was a disaster. He also wanted fund terrorists and facists in ukaine!

 

[IReallyDoTrainUFC]

I always disliked him. He was a big government neoconservative tyrant.

 

[ocean size]

You sound poor.

100% joke, my brother

Lol it was like an extra first of the month

 

[Fawlty]

Why can't people dare to say honest things like this about Senator McCain's character when the man was still alive and could actually hear them? Why wait until he's dead?

LOL you fucking hack

Just how goddamn stupid and shameless would a person have to be to go after Biden on McCain, when one of the things Biden is most known for is his unlikely friendship with McCain?

 

[TheGreatA]

I just saw McCain as another Dick Cheney-type. A major warmonger whose key interest seemed to be in waging more war.

His lobbying for constant foreign interventions appeared to be a means of compensating for the fact that he never turned out to be a great admiral like his father and grandfather (who were legitimately legendary). He wanted to play "general" even at the expense of people's lives.

People might love him now that he's gone, but subconsciously I'm sure they all acknowledge that America dodged a bullet when he wasn't elected president.

Whatever people might say about Trump, for now, he hasn't killed half as many people as most of his predecessors. I doubt the same could've been said about McCain, had he taken up the reins.

 

[MicroBrew]

The Media’s Crocodile Tears for Senator McCain Doesn’t Erase Their Past Demonization of Him
by Joseph A. Wulfsohn | Aug 27th, 2018

​

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was an honorable human being. He sacrificed so much with his military service and as a POW and dedicated his entire adult life to public service. It’s safe to say that virtually everyone had at least one political disagreement with the senator. After all, he was America’s “maverick.”

And while we will reflect on his incredible life, and certainly there is an impulse to offer praise in the event of someone’s death, we should also reflect on the media’s selective treatment of McCain.

Since the announcement of his death, McCain has been showered with deserving praise by the media with The New York Times calling him a “scarred but happy warrior” and The Washington Post declaring his death the “passing of an era.” There have been tweets from nearly every prominent journalist paying tribute to the top Republican, praising him as a “hero” and a “patriot.”

The fickle media conveniently pays respect to McCain whenever he isn’t deemed a political threat. In other words, they will do everything to depict him as a monster if, just for example, he’s seeking higher office. Or if he’s passing legislation they themselves reject. Or he agrees with Republicans on anything, really.

But whenever he’s in opposition to President Donald Trump, he’s suddenly no longer the villain they previously painted him as; he becomes the media’s best friend and the epitome of moral authority. And seeing them shame the White House into honoring McCain properly is truly comical.

Let’s look back at his 2008 presidential campaign against then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

We’ve all seen that famous clip of McCain confronting a supporter at a town hall when she referred to Obama as an “Arab” and how he defended his opponent’s patriotism, calling him a “decent family man” and stressing their differences were strictly political.

That’s a degree of good faith that was not extended to him in return. Even at the time, The Huffington Post spun that exchange for him not “directly” refuting the Arab claim. And more recently, TeenVogue went even further, calling McCain’s defense of Obama “patently Islamophobic” because he seemed to have separated being an Arab from being a “decent family man.” On his own side, Republican voters held this moment as an example of how being fair or righteous gains nothing in a contest with Democrats and the press. The media won’t concede decency in Republicans during an election.

Just look at how they covered the rest of his campaign. Slate labeled McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin as “heirs” of George Wallace‘s “legacy of resentment.” The Guardian described “the real McCain” as someone who has “sided with religious and political extremists who believe Islam is evil and gays are immoral” and “who wants to appoint extreme conservatives to the Supreme Court and see abortion banned.” And a CBS News columnist insisted that his only path to victory in the 2008 election was taking “the low road,” suggesting his “The American President” campaign slogan used in his ads were meant to stress Obama’s “differentness,” aka the fact that he’s black. In the NYT‘s endorsement of Obama, they accused McCain of running a campaign on “partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism.”

Even more than painting him as evil, they questioned his mental and physical fitness for the job, his age, his health … all the things the press deemed sexist when Trump supporters questioned Hillary Clinton‘s fitness in 2016.

McCain was later smeared as a racist in 2012 by then-MSNBC.com editor Richard Wolffe, citing his “racial prejudice” against Obama’s nominee to replace Clinton at the State Department Susan Rice and not the actual reason, which was Rice’s misleading characterization of the Benghazi terrorist attack.

Then in 2017, the media’s indignant rejection of racist McCain returned to a newfound love. Specifically, their tune changed during the emotional health care debate. Before his infamous thumbs down vote on the “skinny” Obamacare repeal, something that received fawning praise from most of the mainstream media (mostly notably from MSNBC’s Brian Williams who called it a “profile in courage”), a GQ columnist predicted he wouldn’t “show courage,” calling him a “shitbag.” Jimmy Kimmel repeatedly thanked McCain for his opposition to the Graham-Cassidy bill, calling him a “hero.” And just weeks later, after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, he grouped McCain with other Republicans who he said the NRA had their “balls in a money clip.”

Are we sensing a pattern here?

The left paints GOPers as evil and bigoted and they only cease their attacks when they align with their own positions and narratives. They gave the same treatment to Mitt Romney, depicting him as an out-of-touch, racist, wealthy elitist who puts “women in binders.” And they would have given the same treatment to Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and even John Kasich if they were up against Hillary Clinton in the general election. Bill Maher admitted in 2016 that it was wrong when he and other liberals “cried wolf” with McCain, Romney as well as George W. Bush, saying it was a “big mistake” to panic over them… at least in comparison to Trump.

Of course, he waited to say that until after the damage was done and when McCain, Romney, and Bush became politically irrelevant.

And according to the Pew Research Center, McCain and Trump have one thing in common; overwhelming negative campaign coverage. A 2008 study showed that nearly 60% of McCain stories were negative while only 14% were positive. Meanwhile, 36% of stories on Obama were positive and only 29% were negative.

Did a war hero like John McCain deserve 60% of negative coverage? Of course not.

Just as we are all reflecting on McCain’s life and legacy, the media should reflect on how they covered him. McCain was a good man and they treated him like garbage when he sought the highest office in the land.

In opposition to Obama, he was demonized. In opposition to Trump, he was lionized.

We shouldn’t be fooled by their crocodile tears now that he has passed. After all, they did nothing but presented him as if he were Satan himself as they did with Bush and Romney. They wouldn’t dare humanize political opposition. Because to them, Republicans are evil when they run for president and are only respected when they’re powerless.

Or dead.

Demonized is too strong a word. McCain was never criticized to the extent that Bush Jnr and Trump were/are. It is hyporbole to say they demonized him.
Media didn't paint McCain as racist, they said some of his supporters were and Palin used some racial code words. But McCain was praised for shutting down the racists.

 

[Ophydian]

In the other thread I posted one writer who questioned his white supremacy problem and then when he died called him an "eloquent voice" that is what pisses me off. For retweets for God sake.

It literally would be like if Rosie O'Donnell/Elizabeth Warren died and Donald Trump gave a 10-minute speech on how great they were.
Would you buy it?

Not with Trump because we all know he has 0 compassion for anyone but himself so horrible comparison. Civilized normal people can respect the dead and honor the good they did. It’s takes a ripe piece of shit to kick a dead man when he’s down.

I agreed 100% with what you said in the brain cancer thread, it honestly could had ended their. I even said I hope the Mango Mussolini doesn’t pull shot on twitter but let’s not kick that dead horse any more.

 

[Trotsky]

@Arkain2K This is by far your dumbest thread and your shittiest opinion that I've seen.

Most of the guy's policies sucked. Furthermore, he had his fair share of corruption, scandal and blatant hypocrisy. However, as somewhat of a party dinosaur, he came to be a relatively decent stalwart in a Republican Party increasingly devoid of honor, consistency, honesty, or shame. For not entirely bending over to the wave of post-Gingrich shittiness and continuing to maintain his own line in the sand on discourse and reactionary policymaking, he gets props. But he gets those props, as well, because the persons giving them are extremely decent.

 

[xcvbn]

Bullshit.

Senator McCain was a respectable Senator who put his country above himself and his party, unlike the overwhelming majority of our Senate. We're not going to have a Senator that could be half the man McCain was. This is undeniable truth, even if you disagree with his opinions, just like Senator Biden acknowledged above.

If there's any remaining doubt, go ahead and put your own Senators next to this "demon", especially the career politicians constantly being praised by the Media over the last few decades, and see how their characters compares.

The media and other politicians should have been fair to the man, instead of making things up just to demonize him when he was still alive, and then use his corpse as a despicable political ploy after his passing. That's something that dirty politicians do, self-respecting journalists should thrives to be better than that.

As for those petty people who continues to demonize the man even after death, soon you're going to wish that we had more "demons" in our government who could love his/her country half as much as Senator McCain.

Alright his body is cold enough.

John McCain lied to Congress and armed terrorists in Syria. Stop with this fucking bullshit narrative that he was a good man. He was a war criminal and should have rotted in prison.

 

[LMP]

Never cared for McCain as a politician, but can respect the amount of time he spent serving the country. In death I have no problem with people paying their respects to a man they didn't always agree with.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Everyone is so full of shit.

This is why both Bernie and Trump had one thing in common, they were genuine.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Never cared for McCain as a politician, but can respect the amount of time he spent serving the country. In death I have no problem with people paying their respects to a man they didn't always agree with.

I don't like McCain as a politician. I respect his service.

There is a conspiracy theory about McCain's military service that i would never bring up now that he has passed. That was fair game when he was using his service for political branding, but now that he is dead, it would seem very low brow to bring up now.

Respect the service, not the opinions, or political action.

 

[Trotsky]

Everyone is so full of shit.

This is why both Bernie and Trump had one thing in common, they were genuine.

Trump is genuine? As in genuinely shameless? Genuinely stupid?

Genuinely childish is probably the answer. But the dude is a pathological liar.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Trump is genuine? As in genuinely shameless? Genuinely stupid?

Genuinely childish is probably the answer. But the dude is a pathological liar.

Yes, Trump's brand is a business man of loose moral character. That was very genuine.

I have heard many of his legit supporters say we need a cut throat businessman as president.

 

[Fawlty]

Every line of attack against the MSM re: McCain's death has been wrong so far.

It was supposedly indecent to call him decent, as if he was being backhandedly complimented. It was also somehow wrong to say he was a good person. And you're apparently not supposed to be respectful and generous after somebody dies (seriously, have you fucking people never noticed this?). Now it's wrong for his friends to say nice things about him (@Arkain2K's giant fuckbomb of Biden fail on page 1 itt).

All I see is a bunch of tiny little vulture ass bitches (like @Arkain2K) trying to pick the bones of this for whatever it's worth to them.

It's normal when people die to speak well of them, even if you have harshly or unfairly criticized them in the past.

 

[Arkain2K]

Well, it didn't take that long at all for a thread about the media's treatment of John McCain to become a thread about Trump.

Everybody go home, show's over.

 

[Trotsky]

bunch of tiny little vultures trying to pick the bones of this for whatever it's worth to them.

This is a really apt metaphor

 

[Fawlty]

Well, it didn't take that long at all for a thread about the media's treatment of John McCain to become a thread about Trump.

Everybody go home, show's over.

Of course, you can just duck and dive away from your absolute howler of a partisan shitbag mistake that way.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

newsflash - politician is a piece of shit.