Have you no dignity, Mr. President?
“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don’t care about this. I didn’t get a thank you. That’s OK. We sent him on the way. But I wasn’t a fan of John McCain.”
— President Trump, in a speech in Lima, Ohio, on March 20
It started last Monday.
The nation awakened to the news that our president had engaged in a weekend-long fusillade of ill-tempered tweets.
He’d thrown vicious low-blows at lots of people.
Fifty tweets. None dressed up to look presidential.
He reserved his worst for the late John McCain.
Even (falsely) tweeting on March 17 that McCain had been “last in his class” at the U.S. Naval Academy.
No telling why Trump suddenly decided to devote his tweeting-time to a man who’s been dead for seven months.
Had McCain come to him in his sleep and asked to see his college grades?
Was he afraid that the ghost of McCain revealed those grades at a specially called news conference?
We’ll never know.
We do know that McCain has family members who’re very much alive.
They don’t take kindly to Trump’s petty childishness.
According to McCain’s daughter, Meghan, “He spends his weekend obsessing over great men. Because he knows it, and I know it, and all of you know it – he will never be a great man,” she said as co-host of ABC’s The View.
Predictably, most Republicans in Congress, many who had the honor of serving alongside McCain, failed to stand up for him — and against Trump.
By last Wednesday, the Trump/McCain feud had become downright nasty. When Trump gave a speech at a manufacturing plant in Lima, Ohio, he went way overboard.
“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which I had to approve. I don’t care about this. I didn’t get a thank you,” Trump told the crowd (which went quiet).
Trump probably had no idea how silly it sounded when he groused that “I didn’t get a thank you,” from a dead man.
“We sent him on the way. But I wasn’t a fan of John McCain,” he added.
The fact that every living president, except him, was invited to McCain’s funeral still sticks in Trump’s craw.
Sure, Trump still complains because McCain’s no vote helped sink his efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare.
He’s careful not to mention that there were really two other Republican Senators (Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski) voted no and blocked that bill).
But the fact that McCain left word to invite Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and especially Barack Obama had been invited to celebrate his remarkable life last August, is still too much for him to avoid attacking a man who hasn’t been able to attack back for seven months.
That’s not only petty. It’s (to use one of Trump’s favorite words) DISGRACEFUL!
John Sidney McCain III was a decorated American war hero.
Donald John Trump avoided the draft. Then he faked having “bone spurs.”
McCain walked in the footsteps of a father and grandfather who were both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.
Trump raised in the shadows of, and in the bank accounts of a father who had serious civil rights charges against him.
McCain spent most of his life in service to our country.
Trump spends most of his time complaining somebody is cheating him out of something.
McCain was a Naval pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam.
Trump famously said in 1998, that having sex without protection, was his own “Personal Vietnam”.
McCain became a prisoner of war.
Trump is a prisoner of his own ego.
McCain was severely tortured and suffered lifelong scars caused by a ruthless enemy.
Trump gets enraged when they make fun of him on Saturday Night Live.
McCain even showed a measure of class with the people with whom he disagreed.
Trump only shows class to gain an advantage for himself.
Other times, he shows no class at all.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.