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John McCain has died

nytimes.com

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Re: John McCain has died

#61

Post by gbacon »

tzs wrote: post #37

The comment section on the story about this on Foxnew.com [1] is eye-opening. At the moment it is about 1/3 celebrating his death and complaining that he was really a RINO or closet liberal, 1/3 not commenting on his death but complaining about the RINO/closet liberal stuff, and 1/3 expressing sorrow at his death. [1] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/08/25/john-mccain-dead-... Addendum: the comments section seems…

Revolting cheers at Scalia’s death were similar. Any hint at possibly gaining control of The Precious brings out the very worst in people.

Hivemind N.B.: I had strong disagreements with both Scalia and McCain. Don’t taze me, bro!

Re: John McCain has died

#62

Post by EpicEng »

secfirstmd wrote: post #50
gbacon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McCain might have beaten Hillary, but when Obama locked up the drawn out Democratic nomination, the race was over for the reasons you described.

Also making the ridiculous decision (which says a lot about his judgement) to run with Sarah Palin as his VP.

This is complete conjecture, so grain of salt and all that, but I'm not so sure it says what you think it does about his judgement. He had run before. Honest campaigns, little to no mud slinging, not what you typically see from politicians. He lost.

He gave in to the RNC advisors and others around him that time around. Palin obviously turned out to be awful (maybe not strong enough a word) and he didn't care for her very much either, but I imagine he just wanted to get into office so that he could institute what he felt were good policies.

I think he was fundamentally a good person and would have been a good leader, though of course we can debate the merits of his policies. Everything being equal, I'll vote for the person I believe has the interests of the populace at heart.

Re: John McCain has died

#63

Post by majos »

dopeboy wrote: post #24

I got to live in Iowa in the summer of 2007 for an engineering internship at Rockwell Collins. One bonus of that was getting to go to all the rallies. I went to a McCain rally and an Obama rally. I remember the energy of the room when Obama came in. The crowd was young and loud. Obama got up and gave his usual stump speech and then went around to shake hands. I shook his hand and got a word or two in but I could tell…

David Foster Wallace had a similar reaction to McCain when he covered him in the 2000 election [1].

[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/davi...

Re: John McCain has died

#64

Post by [deleted] »

untog wrote: post #53
liquidise wrote: post #26

America lost a publicly principled man today. RIP sir. As a related meta-analysis of the response to his passing, i am surprised how many comments here include disclaimers to the appreciation offered. "I didn't agree with him but...". Have we become this partisan as a people? Our semi-anonymous respects for the passing of a prominent figure must be disclaimer-ed with political editorials. A worrying trend.

> Our semi-anonymous respects for the passing of a prominent figure must be disclaimer-ed with political editorials. I mean, he was a politician. And I don't think people are saying that to disclaim their appreciation at all, they're saying it to underline the fact that their appreciation exists despite a deep disagreement with his politics.

[deleted]

Re: John McCain has died

#65

Post by davrosthedalek »

aerovistae wrote: post #51
ransom1538 wrote: post #6

"McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958 and followed his father and grandfather—both four-star admirals—into the U.S. Navy. He became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. While McCain was on a bombing mission over Hanoi in October 1967, he was shot down, seriously injured, and capture…

I dislike this mentality and wish to dissent. I feel bad about playing video games sometimes and have to remind myself of the photograph called Hubble Deep Field. Look it up if you haven’t seen it before. Do what you want to and don’t stop yourself from enjoying it by comparing your life to some famous person or some blogger. It’s easy to feel bad when you read a biography of Augustus....why aim low and settle for co…

I agree largely. On the other hand, such contemplation could be the motivation to be the next "Augustus".

Re: John McCain has died

#66

Post by dnomad »

liquidise wrote: post #26

America lost a publicly principled man today. RIP sir. As a related meta-analysis of the response to his passing, i am surprised how many comments here include disclaimers to the appreciation offered. "I didn't agree with him but...". Have we become this partisan as a people? Our semi-anonymous respects for the passing of a prominent figure must be disclaimer-ed with political editorials. A worrying trend.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of American politics is the total lack of accountability. You really don't see this sort of blind loyalty outside of third world banana regimes. Here you have a guy who is self-admittedly responsible for the destruction of half a million mostly innocent human beings [1], a key architect of the greatest crime of the 21st century that led directly to the scourge of ISIS and the destruction of Syria, and it's like -- "He was an American hero! Don't dare criticize him!"

The only actual anger towards McCain comes from Trump extremists. And this is the interesting bit: accountability is supposed to be a key aspect of democracy but you can literally push your country into a totally unnecessary and that's A-OK. You'll only be criticized if you deviate from the party's leader.

And while McCain may have eventually admitted Iraq was a mistake it did nothing to lessen his efforts to bomb brown people. He was a key supporter of Saudi Arabia's carpet bombing of Yemen [2] which is now literally blowing up school buses of children. I guess you don't even have to learn from your mistakes.

[1] https://www.vox.com/2018/5/25/17394466/john-mccain-memoir-ir...

[2] http://observer.com/2017/06/democrats-trump-administration-a...

Re: John McCain has died

#67

Post by beltex »

May he rest in peace.

Glioblastoma is particularly awful, even in the realm of cancer. Two books I found quite interesting on neurosurgery and cancer as a whole.

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery

by Henry Marsh

and

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Re: John McCain has died

#68

Post by drhodes »

liquidise wrote: post #26

America lost a publicly principled man today. RIP sir. As a related meta-analysis of the response to his passing, i am surprised how many comments here include disclaimers to the appreciation offered. "I didn't agree with him but...". Have we become this partisan as a people? Our semi-anonymous respects for the passing of a prominent figure must be disclaimer-ed with political editorials. A worrying trend.

> Have we become this partisan as a people.

It's a human thing. econtalk had an interesting interview this week with someone who wrote a book on this topic.

http://www.econtalk.org/lilliana-mason-on-uncivil-agreement/...

Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity.

Re: John McCain has died

#69

Post by danielvf »

ransom1538 wrote: post #6

"McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958 and followed his father and grandfather—both four-star admirals—into the U.S. Navy. He became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. While McCain was on a bombing mission over Hanoi in October 1967, he was shot down, seriously injured, and capture…

In 1969, as John McCain was strapped into his fueled and armed aircraft, a missile accidentally fired from an aircraft across the carrier. The missile ruptured his aircraft's fuel tank, and wrecked the aircraft next to his. Both aircraft, and all the spilled fuel caught on fire. Both aircraft's bombs, old and with decomposing explosives, began to explode in the fire much sooner than the should have. McCain escaped injured. The pilot next to him was killed by the bombs, as was most of the carrier's fire team.

In all, 134 men on the carrier died from the fires and explosions that day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire

Re: John McCain has died

#70

Post by gbacon »

EpicEng wrote: post #62
secfirstmd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also making the ridiculous decision (which says a lot about his judgement) to run with Sarah Palin as his VP.

This is complete conjecture, so grain of salt and all that, but I'm not so sure it says what you think it does about his judgement. He had run before. Honest campaigns, little to no mud slinging, not what you typically see from politicians. He lost. He gave in to the RNC advisors and others around him that time around. Palin obviously turned out to be awful (maybe not strong enough a word) and he didn't care for her…

I remember reading that McCain picked Palin over his handlers’ strong objections. Was it the other way around?
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