I see Senator McCain had a failure of nerve today. The balance of power lay with any of the 50 GOP Senators who voted for the GOP’s ACA replacement. Simply vote against the ACA, and you could be Justice Kennedy, the arbiter of power. All 50 of them failed, but it was McCain who tried to reprimand his colleagues for their unprofessional approach to this issue:
“I hope we can again rely on humility, on our need to cooperate, on our dependence on each other to learn how to trust each other again and by so doing better serve the people who elected us. Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the Internet. To hell with them. They don’t want anything done for the public good. Our incapacity is their livelihood.
“Let’s trust each other. Let’s return to regular order. We’ve been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. That’s an approach that’s been employed by both sides, mandating legislation from the top down, without any support from the other side, with all the parliamentary maneuvers that requires.
“We’re getting nothing done. All we’ve really done this year is confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Our healthcare insurance system is a mess. We all know it, those who support Obamacare and those who oppose it. Something has to be done. We Republicans have looked for a way to end it and replace it with something else without paying a terrible political price. We haven’t found it yet, and I’m not sure we will. All we’ve managed to do is make more popular a policy that wasn’t very popular when we started trying to get rid of it. …
“We’ve tried to do this by coming up with a proposal behind closed doors in consultation with the administration, then springing it on skeptical members, trying to convince them it’s better than nothing, asking us to swallow our doubts and force it past a unified opposition. I don’t think that is going to work in the end. And it probably shouldn’t.” [CNN]
Nice words, but the fact of the matter, Senator McCain, is that you had a chance to reprimand your colleagues effectively, and you failed to do so. As you know, actions speak louder than words, and you failed to take action when the chance came. You’re no longer the maverick, you’re just another GOP Senator, following orders, no matter how much you squawk.
Kudos to Senators Collins and Murkowski for being willing to reproach their colleagues.
