John McCain’s Next Great Mission

7/27/2017

(This piece was written 12 hours before John McCain cast a deciding vote in defeating the bill that would have taken health care from over 20 million people. I have read Paul Krugman's perceptive column in the NYT, also written earlier Thursday, long before McCain's vote, depicting the senator's erratic stances.
It's tricky to write about a moving story. On Thursday, Laura Vecsey wrote a glimpse of the Scaramucci family from our town. Later, Anthony became Trump's Trump via his vile rant to the New Yorker. It's a moving spectacle. I think I know where this is all going -- sooner rather than later, one can only hope. GV.)
* * *
This is not the role anybody wanted for John McCain – appearing in public with a red raw line above his eye, from the recent incursion toward his brain.

I have been writing for over six months that I fully expected Sen. McCain to be a pivotal figure in the inevitable dumpsterization of Donald Trump.

I spent a few hours with Sen. McCain in his office for a column during an Olympic hearing in 1999, seeing the cranky side and the generous side.

Sen. McCain remains enigmatic – coming back from an awful diagnosis to cast a vote on health care, temporarily siding with the president who once declared him not a hero, and also supporting the amoral Mitch McConnell, to prolong this foolishness.

But then John McCain did what I have expected of him on his good-John-McCain days: he plainly called the Republican health-care “plan” meaningless, empty.

Now he has viscerally reacted to the pathetic tweeter of the White House by criticizing the call to bar transgender people from the military. This pilot served, was tortured. He knows how things actually work in the service, as opposed to the poseur from military school.

The same goes for Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who lost parts of her legs while serving as a pilot in Iraq. I saw her on TV the other night, talking about the foolish gesture toward transgender military people. She was, as always, so smart, so dignified. So presidential.

John McCain did not get to be president. His best moment during the campaign was to take the microphone back from the bigot in red who labelled Barack Obama “an A-rab.”

It was hard, recently, to watch John McCain stumble while asking questions in a Senate hearing. Now we know what is happening. But I am counting on him to exercise the just part of him. His pals in the mute White Citizens Council posse that materializes behind McConnell cannot pretend things are just fine, when John McCain is reacting viscerally to the disorder.

Unlike Trump, Sen. McCain felt no need to pander to the religious right on the transgender issue.

I originally thought it would take 18 rational months to rid the country of the buffoon, but now I think it could happen by Labor Day. This can’t go on. John McCain can help by calling out a disturbed man.

He flew many missions, but when he and Lindsay Graham pay that visit to the White House one of these months, it will be John McCain’s greatest mission.

Alan Rubin link

7/27/2017 04:42:13 pm

George,

I believe that Senator John McCain missed the opportunity to cement his legacy on a high note.

You correctly highlighted a wonderful career of service to our nation and called our attention to his many principled stands.

McCain delivered an impassioned critique of partisanship, haste, and win-at-all costs legislation, just moments after casting a vote to debate a bill that exemplifies all three. If his vote was as principled as his rhetoric, there would not be the current concern about what kind of bill will eventually emerge.

A McCain No vote would have forced the senate to actually do what his speech asked for: a dialog and cooperation.

I had admired Senator McCain’s plain-talking and maverick reputation for years. I lost some respect for him when Sarah Palin was selected as his vice presidential running mate. I lost all respect for him with this latest vote.

People are judged by their actions, not their words.

Brian Savin

7/27/2017 09:38:08 pm

George, I mostly agree with you about McCain. I regret not voting for him for President. Family members I love did. I couldn't believe it, but now I know they were more insightful than I was. Instead, we got a cypher, nice man, whose only job was to issue get out of jail free cards to the financial guys who ruined our economy (a consequence of the deregulation of dirivatives under Carter and Larry Summers) and it required a doubling of our national debt to bail them out. Out of this swamp we correctly elected Donald Trump. Bernie was knee capped.

It will be horribly messy, but Trump is going nowhere for eight years. And if there is a political coup attempt, he will win. You are fooling yourself if you think otherwise.

Cheer up! I hear he may need another Queens guy, once The Mooch moves to Chief of Staff, to be Communications Chief. The President doesn't like yes men; you'd be perfect and should think about public service. It's about time.
Best
Brian

Brian Savin

7/27/2017 10:47:21 pm

I meant Clinton, not President Carter. I voted for Carter, maybe the nicest man ever elected President. It was also possibly the worst vote I ever cast. It taught me that it's damn hard to be an effective President. It's also hard to be nice and effective. Consequently, President Trump is hugely under respected.

Gene Palumbo

7/28/2017 02:14:28 am

Alan,

I’m wondering: might it be possible for us to take heart – at least a little bit? I say that because, sitting here at my desk in San Salvador after midnight, I just went to the NYTimes website and was delighted to see this, way up at the top of the page:

Breaking News: The Senate rejected Republican legislation to repeal parts of Obamacare, with Senator John McCain casting a deciding vote

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“WASHINGTON — The Senate on Friday rejected a new, scaled-down Republican plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, seemingly derailing the Republicans’ seven-year campaign to dismantle the health care law.

“Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, cast the decisive vote to defeat the proposal, joining two other Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, in opposing it.

“The 49-to-51 vote was a huge setback for the majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has spent the last three months trying to devise a repeal bill that could win support from members of his caucus. . . .

“I’m not going to vote for a bill that is terrible policy and horrible politics just because we have to get something done,” [Senator Lindsay] Graham said at a news conference, calling the stripped-down bill a “disaster” and a “fraud” as a replacement for the health law.

Brian Savin

7/28/2017 09:20:31 am

Gene, say hello to Attorney General Sessions if you see him down there today!

The industry structure of healthcare is broken. From the standpoint of that structure, which existed pretty much as it is now when Obamacare was passed, the idea was essentially to hold insurers harmless to encourage more to enter. The hope was that if more came in, that would create incentives for them to creatively negotiate with concentrating hospitals, middle men, pharmaceuticals, etc. and help to lower or limit out of skyrocketing prices.

It didn't work. The current Republican idea is also focused on the insurance companies. It is to give them more flexibility in plan offering as long as they also offer plans that cover everyone, who will be subsidized one way or another. It likely also will not work, but it may be necessary to try one more time before we tumble to the obvious, namely, medicare for all.

The focus on supporting insurance companies faces engrained incentives in the existing industry structure that are not in the public interest. For example, Aetna is being accused of playing politics with the exchanges created under Obamacare. Rather than encouraging competition in insurance, Obamacare encouraged concentration and less competition. And when they weren't allowed to merge, they took it out on the government, it appears:

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20170727/NEWS/170729910?ito=792#comments

Mendel

7/28/2017 09:28:34 am

George,

With a seven hour head start on EST I've been waiting all day for you to amend this post. What might a NYM fan know about hope?

George Vecsey

7/28/2017 10:03:07 am

Mendel: As for the Mets, I cite Dante:
"lasciate ogne speranza voi ch'intrate."

shalom, GV

Gene Palumbo

7/28/2017 09:47:26 am

I know we try to keep things “nice” on this blog, but I just couldn’t let this go by – “this” being Brian’s description of Obama as a “cipher” whose “only job was to issue get out of jail free cards to the financial guys who ruined our economy.” That’s all he did? To take just one example, I had thought – but is my memory deceiving me? – he’d done a thing or two about climate change – things which, of course, Trump and his people have been busy undoing.

I recall the phrase “fight fair.” Have you considered doing that, Brian, instead of what you’ve done here? Please: at the very least, be truthful.

I agree, by the way, that he was much too easy on the “financial guys,” as you call them, and he did other things that I vehemently disagreed with; but to caricature him as you’ve done here – sorry, but I just couldn’t be silent in the face of that one.

And then there was your entry in the logic competition: “It's hard to be nice and effective. Therefore, President Trump is hugely under respected.” What?!

Are you claiming Trump has been “nice”?

Or are you claiming that, while not nice, at least he’s been effective? You mean, for example, in the area of health care? I’ve lost track of how many bills his people have failed to get approved – today’s being only the latest. You call that “effective”? As today’s piece in the Times points out, even some of Trump’s “most loyal defenders” have been left “exhausted” by the way he’s behaved: (the next four paragraphs are from the Times piece)

The clash between Mr. Scaramucci and Mr. Priebus offers a case study in how the Trump White House operates, a conflict divorced from facts, untethered from the basics of how government works, enabled by the lack of any organizational structure and driven by ambition, fear, animosity and envy.

. . . President Trump not only tolerates feuds within his team, he fuels them, playing one courtier off another and leaving them all unsteady. He chooses favorites and casts others aside, but even those decisions seem subject to change at any moody moment. . . .

Left to explain all this was Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the new White House press secretary. “This is a White House that has lots of different perspectives because the president hires the very best people,” she said gamely, . . .asserting that a “healthy competition” benefits Mr. Trump. “With that competition, you usually get the best results. The president likes that kind of competition and encourages it.”

That kind of competition has exhausted even some of Mr. Trump’s most loyal defenders.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/scaramucci-priebus-leaks.html

George Vecsey

7/28/2017 10:11:33 am

Brian: I agree with you about insurance and medical conglomerates. Shareholders want more profits....and work against the opposing impulse to take care of fellow humans. ACA is hardly perfect, but compared to what?
Gene: I agree with you., I bristled at the description of Obama, one of the smartest and most complex presidents we have had. I can only wonder what he -- and Congress -- might have done without the mission of McConnell to wreck that presidency. I am sure racism was a large part of it with creeps like McConnell, Boehner, Ryan and Cantor, AKA The Putz. They were uncomfortable being around a smart and secure couple like that. From that, stems the willingness to take away care from millions. It never ends. GV

Joshua Rubin

7/28/2017 02:05:06 pm

I agree with George and Gene about Obama. The fact that, in 7 years, not one in several hundred GOP senators and representatives have figured out a logical and palatable alternative to Obama care speaks volumes about the intelligence and sophistication he brought to governing our nation. Of course, it is easier to design legislation that accomplishes a substantial public benefit when you start out, in good faith, wanting to achieve that.

Re: McCain. He is a conservative (as we used to understand that term). But given his history, not to mention his current situation, I have same view I had with Miles Davis when he mad those last few pop records in the 80s -- he earned the right to do whatever the hell he wanted, no one has the right to tell him otherwise, and I will just enjoy whatever good notes come out of it.

twizl games link

8/10/2017 06:55:34 am

wir danken Ihnen fu das Interesse an unseren Produkten und hoffe friv4school2018com.com gryfriv2.net gryfriv5.net Wir danken Ihnen gryfrivcom.com juegofriv100.com juegofriv1000.com dass Sie diese Hoffnung mit uns teilen und diesen Schritt auf dem Pilgerweg des Vertrauens juegofriv5.com juegosdefriv2com.com Ihnen hiermit die gewünschten Informationen vermitteln zu können. juegosfriv250com.com juegosyepicom.com mit uns gegangen sind.

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

John McCain’s Next Great Mission

Categories

Buy the Book