John McCain’s Ultimate Vanity Production

He could have just stayed in Arizona. He didn’t have to vote at all, if he doesn’t like the Republican so-called health care bill, which he says he wouldn’t vote for in its current form (whatever that is). If McCain had just stayed in bed, McConnell’s atrocity would have been dead.

But no, John McCain had to rise heroically from his bed of pain, because–you know–he’s a media-certified hero, and that’s what heros do. And sure enough, he got what he wanted–a standing ovation when he walked into the Senate chamber. Because, you know, that’s what heros deserve. It’s that red carpet moment.

So McCain did what he always does, which is to pretend to be a principled, straight-talking “maverick”. I’m calling bullshit.

McCain can talk the talk. He decried the grotesque parliamentary maneuvers employed by McConnell to keep TrumpDon’tCare alive, but again today McCain enabled them just by showing up. He laments that the Senate doesn’t do business as it used to do, but he always goes along with the Republican leadership’s scorched-earth tactics. He complains that the Republican bill is being voted on just because it’s “better than nothing.” But I’m betting that he will vote for it in the end, if for no other reason because it could kill the program named after Obama–the man who defeated him.

So, just like Marco Rubio, he harrumphs about his “reservations” in order to get credit for his self-proclaimed “independence.” But reservations only count in restaurants. In the end, McCain (like Rubio) is no maverick, but just another one of the neutered herd.

Sad.