Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has reportedly not been invited to attend funeral services for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), her onetime running mate.
NBC News reported Wednesday that Palin had not been invited. A source within the Palin family told NBC News that “out of respect to Senator McCain and his family we have nothing to add at this point.”
A parting lesson in American civility from Sen. John McCain lies in the roster of leaders he personally selected to pay tribute at his memorial service Saturday at the National Cathedral.
It was a day in early April when Barack Obama received an unexpected call from McCain, who was battling brain cancer and said he had a blunt question to ask: Would you deliver one of the eulogies at my funeral?
Palin has always been loyal to John McCain. Obama trashed him. That's how civility works, folks.
Trump saw no reason to honor a political enemy, until he was essentially forced to do so. You can question Trump on any number of issues; goodness knows I have. On this one, I don't. As I wrote yesterday, McCain may have been a hero in one facet of his life, but that did not mean he was consistently heroic, or even virtuous, throughout his political career. We have lowered the flag to half staff consistently throughout the years and, in many instances, it has been in tribute to scoundrels. In many cases, a flag is lowered to half staff and most of us aren't even sure why.
We will spend the next week honoring a man with an exceedingly complicated legacy. That's fine, but I wish we'd spend less time paying tribute and more time trying to unwind the implications of those legacies.
It's not polite to speak ill of the dead, especially when the decedent has recently earned the mantel of a Good Republican. So be it.
For a guy who demonstrated great valor as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, John McCain had a lot of Stockholm Syndrome in his political career. He claimed to be a conservative and, at times, was one. But he never really challenged the premises of his political opponents and seemed to accept their worldview. He was clearly more comfortable with losing honorably than with winning. I suspect that's because winners get to decide, while losers get to react, and there was always a lot more potential for praise in Washington if you were reacting, rather than deciding. Especially if you reacted in a manner that granted the premises of those you ostensibly opposed. John McCain was a master at this. If you really wanted to see his anger, you had to challenge him from the political right. And if you doubt that John McCain didn't like to be challenged, consider his role in promulgating the odious campaign finance law that bears his name. Free speech, along with every value conservatives hold dear, was always negotiable.
As far as I know, John McCain never drowned a woman in an Oldsmobile. We have no evidence he was a thief or a sexual predator. That's not enough. I had great respect for the valor of John Glenn, but he was not much of a senator, either. John McCain served his country for his entire life. Longevity and value are not the same thing. I will pray for his family in their time of grief. But I will not miss his political career in the slightest.
If you're angry with your coworkers, don't call Ryan Lizza to vent.
If you'd like to repeal Obamacare, don't count on the Republican Party to do it.
The Trump administration likes to give weeks a theme. We're in the middle of dumpster fire week. Let's begin with the Leader of the Free World's new communications supremo, Anthony Scaramucci, who shares the following wisdom (apologies in advance for the multiple F-bombs, but a quote is a quote):
“They’ll all be fired by me,” [Scaramucci] said. “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus—if you want to leak something—he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.” The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn’t been invited. “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ” (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.)
Try the decaf, Mr. Scaramucci. Of course, he was just getting warmed up:
Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)
Let's not mince words here -- Scaramucci thinks he's a genius, but he's really playing the Kevin Kline character in "A Fish Called Wanda." Again, there's some working blue here, but it makes the point:
Rather than worrying about whether someone takes a meeting with Bill Shine, I'd suggest Scaramucci get his shine box.
A months-long effort by Senate Republicans to pass health legislation collapsed early Friday after GOP Senator John McCain joined two of his colleagues to block a stripped-down Obamacare repeal bill.
“I regret that our efforts were simply not enough, this time,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor after the vote. “This is clearly a disappointing moment.”
“It’s time to move on,” he added after pulling the bill from the floor.
The decision by McCain to vote no came after weeks of brinkmanship and after his dramatic return from cancer treatment to cast the 50th vote to start debate on the bill earlier this week. The GOP’s ‘skinny’ repeal bill was defeated 49-51, falling just short of the 50 votes needed to advance it. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski also voted against it.
I've been trying to keep track of this -- based on who you talk to, and when you talk to them, John McCain is either a hero or a monster, and the answer changes by the hour. For his part, Le Grand Orange is probably right:
Especially, watch your wallet
The Democrats want the Republicans to start negotiating with them now. I wouldn't bother. Let the death spiral keep spiraling for another year. Let it burn. At this point, it would be better to work on tax reform and see what happens there.
I get up early in the morning so I have time to look at what's happening and write a blog post about it, if possible. As it happens, Donald Trump is simultaneously engaging in a Twitter storm in real time. As always, read 'em from the bottom up:
Naming names
So if you are reading this correctly, you see the Leader of the Free World dropping a dime on two of the most important officials in the Justice Department. So if you want a hot take, here ya go:
It's blindingly obvious Trump has had enough of Sessions and wants him out. It's a horrible idea to turn the Attorney General into an attack dog, but it's also been done in the past. Eric Holder, who was Barack Obama's AG, was always on the attack. Based on the available evidence, Sessions is either unable or unwilling to serve in this role.
It's not been widely reported, but it is a matter of public record that Andrew McCabe, who is still at the helm of the FBI, has a problem with his own financial disclosures. McCabe's wife, who ran for office in Virginia in 2015, received a total of $760,000 for her campaign from political action committees controlled by the Democrats, which Andrew McCabe did not initially disclose. To the extent that Hillary Clinton controlled the Democratic Party, Trump is correct.
Some executives send out memoranda. Trump seems to Tweet. Not how I would do things, but I'm not the Leader of the Free World.
And while I've been writing this, three more Trump Tweets appear:
Carrots, sticks, and a pen
Dang. I thought Trump told us McCain wasn't so good last year. That was then, this is now. Oops, one more!
Are you not entertained?
It may not be the way to run a government, but it's a hell of a show.
Comey is gone. You can find a million links to the story, so I won't bother. My thoughts:
I was nine years old, almost 10, when the Saturday Night Massacre took place. It was actually on my brother's 7th birthday. By the time Nixon moved against Archibald Cox, there was ample evidence of criminal activity. At this point, there is no evidence of criminal activity at all, at least on behalf of the Trump administration, especially in terms of a coverup. As a result, comparing what happened today, right in the middle of the news cycle, with the cynical move that Nixon made on a Saturday night, when he hoped no one would pay attention, is asinine. It's simply not an apt comparison, especially since Trump's attorney general and his deputy were the ones who made the recommendation. Not analogous in the least.
As far as the Democrats are concerned, Comey has been a hero and a goat and a hero and a goat and now, apparently, a hero, because he's been given the pipe. I don't think he's either, actually. He's a bureaucrat trying to survive, but he'd long overrun his headlights in a deep, deep wood. I'm pretty sure Obama would have given Comey the pipe, too, but he didn't feel like he could get by with it, because he thought it would jeopardize the Clinton campaign. As it turned out, Obama was protecting something that was doomed, anyway.
The largest problem with Comey was his approach to his job -- he's an investigator, not a prosecutor, so his regular pronouncements about whether criminal charges were warranted in the Clinton email case were, to put it mildly, outrageous. I understand why Comey did speak up on the case initially -- Loretta Lynch was clearly in the bag for Clinton and the meeting she had with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac in Phoenix was astonishingly improper. It was equally improper for Comey to render a judgment on whether charges were warranted. The right approach would have been to let Lynch kill the investigation, and then resign his position out of principle. That was what Elliot Richardson and William Ruckleshaus did in 1973. Comey apparently wasn't that principled. He tried to split the difference and it did not work.
I see that John McCain, who still hates Trump, is now calling for an independent committee on the Russia business, while Chuck Schumer is calling for a special prosecutor. If I were Trump, I would name McCain the prosecutor and let him go full Captain Queeg on the deal. It would get McCain's butt out of the Senate and would allow the governor of Arizona to appoint a more coherent replacement in the Senate. If my suspicions are correct, Trump doesn't have anything to fear, because if Trump had done something untoward, we'd have found out about it a long time ago. Trump has very few friends in Washington, even in his own party, and there are probably thousands of people who would love to give him the shiv.
My guess on what happens next? Trump will be okay. The more time Chuck Schumer spends in front of a microphone with his sonorous blathering, the better. If Trump is truly interested in clearing the decks, he ought to fire the odious IRS Commissioner John Koskinen next. He ought to then have Sessions turn loose some of his deputies to take a real look into what's been going on at the IRS for the last 8 years. I guarantee that if he did that, some bureaucrat would take his revenge on Trump by releasing his tax returns, which will actually help Trump. I think in about three months, it will become clear that the Trump administration began in earnest this day.
Donald Trump speaks for himself, unless he's using Al Franken's old material (h/t Althouse via Reason Magazine). Senator McCain's colleague wrote in 2000: I doubt I could cross the line and vote Republican. I have tremendous respect for McCain but I don’t buy the war hero thing. Anybody can be captured. I thought the idea was to capture them. As far as I’m concerned he sat out the war. I bet McCain and Franken yuk it up over that in the ol' Senate cloakroom.
The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, in the interest of curing Trump fever, make Trump's point quite clearly: Some Americans may find it satisfying 16 months from Election Day to tell pollsters they’d vote for him, but that doesn’t mean conservative elites should validate this nonsense. Are you part of the conservative elite? Do you want to be part of this elite? The elite seems to have trouble winning national elections. Are the elite's concerns your concerns?
It's hardly a novel thought, but let's just say it -- the reason that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are garnering enthusiasm is the same. There's a sense out here, beyond the Potomac and the Hudson, that our betters aren't listening to the concerns of the people our betters purport to represent. Setting the politics aside for a moment, the only real difference between the Obama years and the presidencies of every president since, well, Grover Cleveland is velocity. The federal government always gets bigger, but it's even more voracious under Obama. Do you get the sense that any of the mainstream candidates are going to change that trajectory?
