The opposite of greatness

You don’t need me to point out that there was considerable kleptocrat-related kerfuffle around honoring John McCain in the period between his death on 25 August and his interment on Sunday.

At every possible point when he could have been presidential, Cadet Bone Spurs instead chose to be petty, churlish and bloody minded. It’s not just the issue of flying the White House Flag at half-staff, which was in itself…extraordinary. (Throughout the week, around Northern Virginia, flags were at half-staff everywhere. Office buildings, car dealerships, even fast food outlets. FFS, even Chick-fil-A had theirs at half-staff. But the White House?)

At every turn he had to be driven to give the absolute bare, grudging minimum. After all, he’s the president, he’s the boss of everything and McCain didn’t give him the respect he should have (= heap fulsome praise on the Orange One and support every vicious, anti-democratic, dangerous whim coming from the Oval Office), so why should he give the guy anything? Also—he’s always held a grudge against McCain, so this was the perfect time to get even; perfect because he finally doesn’t have to worry about McCain issuing a withering statement.

Throughout the week Widdle Donnie was reported to be furious at all the attention McCain was getting. It was excessive, he told his aides (who I’d say should get hazardous duty pay, except they knew what he was when they signed on, so screw ‘em) again and again. It was the kind of attention a president should be getting, not a senator. Especially a senator who never appreciated that Donnie won!

Perhaps it was that perception that McCain was already getting too much attention that kept Li’l Donnie Two-scoops from tweeting his usual poorly-spelled snottery about the man whose record of service has stuck in his orange craw for years. But you know he was pissed off that he wasn’t invited to the funeral, especially when his nemesis Barack Obama was.

The regime was represented at the service by chief of staff John Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, both retired Marine generals who ought to know better than to serve such a dishonorable master. They looked like spectres at the feast, uncomfortable knowing that the man in the flag-draped coffin was far better than the one to whom they report.

Jarvanka crashed the funeral, invited—so reports have it—by Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina who showed his friendship for McCain in recent years by becoming a kleptocrat apologist and betraying everything McCain stood for. Ivanka spent some time absorbed in her mobile phone; maybe texting Daddy or possibly just playing Angry Birds.

Kult Klepto fretted on behalf of their master at how Jarvanka were disrespected at the Cathedral. Someone called Sam Nunberg, who has some affiliation with the family (I don’t know who he is and I don’t care enough to look him up, but if he’s been around for  a long time, he probably ought to be lining up criminal lawyers—eventually Mueller will get around to him, too) flounced—and I am not making this up—“It was a very nice gesture by Jared and Ivanka to attend. I find it contemptible that the McCain family couldn’t seat them in a better, more respectable section.”

Because they’re used to the VIP room at whatever club they go to.

(Actually, I can see why that would bite, when the Obamas, the G.W. Bushes, the Clintons, Dick Cheney and Al Gore were all in the front row. I can hear the tantrum even now, 28 miles from the White House.)

The very same folks who have made death threats to those who disagree with our amateur autocrat took umbrage at several of the eulogies at McCain’s services—Joe Biden’s in Arizona, Bush’s and Obama’s in Washington. It’s tacky and so sad that people inserted politics into a funeral.

The comments on Twitter pointing out that politics in funeral orations is a tradition that goes back at least to Thucydides will not have had any impact. Thucydides is way too long a word, and besides—he wasn’t a real Republican. (These same folks despised McCain as RINO and not nearly obsequious enough to their Cheeto-dust idol.) They completely flipped out at Meghan’s. The “politics” they object to were references to decency in government, generosity in leadership and service to a higher good.

No wonder that pissed them all off. (Interestingly, no one speaking at the services mentioned the name of the current occupant of the White House, but even the double-digit IQs of the cultists made the connection that such qualities do not describe the kleptocrat. And their feewings wewre huwt.) Even more that when Meghan powered through, “The America of John McCain has no need of being made great again because America was always great,” the Cathedral rocked with the applause that spontaneously broke out.

(I’d have given real money if some camera had caught Kelly and Mattis at that moment.)

Other cultists wanted the kleptocrat to be even more petulant than he actually was; they wanted him to fling feces via Twitter or however—because the display of civility and collegiality at the funeral service was just more than they could bear.

However, while much of Washington gathered at the Cathedral to honor a man who dedicated his life to service to the country, the occupant of the White House motorcaded off to his golf course in Loudoun, to play golf. There’s a photo of him, shot with a long lens, all by himself, in the rough. Probably cheating on his score.

In the early evening, when he’d no doubt heard what Meghan had said about America, he tweeted, in all caps, his campaign slogan. So there!

Okay, I’ve got this off my chest. I did not want to sully my thoughts yesterday about McCain’s passing by mixing in all the petty vindictiveness and just all around shite from the mob boss and his ilk. But I also didn’t want it to pass unremarked.