Since Senator McCain voted against the Senate’s replacement for the ACA, he’s come under fire from the right-fringe, and recently one of live rounds came through as an email. This time I’m going to forego quoting the thing, because, quite frankly, I don’t know much about the subject on a factual basis, but I will summarize: in 1967, a terrible accident befell the American aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. The official report was that an electrical surge in an F-4 Phantom caused it to inadvertently fire a rocket while on the flight deck; it hit an A-4 Skyhawk without exploding. At this point, it’s not clear whose A-4 it hit, as then Lieutenant Commander McCain noted immediately following the incident, a not unsurprising admission given how human memory can be damaged by stress. I’ll let Wikipedia summarize the incident:
In July 1967, a fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. An electrical anomaly had caused the discharge of a Zuni rocket on the flight deck, triggering a chain-reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the time, Forrestal was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War. The ship survived, but with damage exceeding US$72 million, not including the damage to aircraft.[2][3] Future United States Senator John McCain and future four-star admiral and US Pacific Fleet Commander Ronald J. Zlatoper were among the survivors.
A representative character assassination piece, not identical to my email, but quite similar, has been published online at The Burning Platform, no doubt a reference to the Forrestal.
As a piece of assassination mail, it bears many of the earmarks which should have the big red flag in the air – it comes after a specific incident in which the victim did not follow the script, the writers insist that some vast conspiracy has covered up the victim’s culpability, as in this:
You see his grandfather was a famous FOUR STAR Navy admiral and his dad was at the time of the incident was a powerful Navy FOUR STAR admiral and McCain graduated from the Navy Academy. So the old boy Navy tradition cover his ass network went into high gear immediately; and make no mistake, it does exist and it did for him.
There is no objective evidence presented; indeed, this is almost not a red flag, as most such pieces will strenuously try to portray themselves as objective reporters in their efforts to be convincing. The assertion is one of those ugly little pieces that can never be disproven by anyone other than the actual author. In fact, this piece comes across as little more than a slimy shot at the Senator. This doesn’t mean it’s ineffective, because McCain is known to treasure his honor, and when someone accuses him and his family of engaging in such a dishonorable act, well, it must be infuriating.
Now, like I said, I know very little about this incident. I’m going down a different, if familiar to long time readers, path, and note how sad it is to see the rigid discipline of the Party come down on one of the last honorable members of the GOP currently holding office. This discipline, these demands to play team politics and bedamned to anyone who dares to use their judgment to evaluate some legislation, continues even in the face of the disaster befalling the nation and the GOP. A responsible legislature would be seriously evaluating Trump’s judicial nominees, and not just grumbling about them, but actually rejecting them. I could go on in this vein, but I shan’t.
What I shall say is that this is the black, pulsating, Satanic underbelly of team politics, where either you’re a yes-man – or you’re out on your ear. Doesn’t matter what you know, or how wise you are, or anything else of real value – all that is of value is your vote, and how you cast it.
Someone else is doing the thinking. And making an example out of McCain.
How much longer will the GOP survive with this horrible rule in place? Keep an eye on the news, because it’ll just get worse until they implode.
For more information on the Forrestal besides the link to the above, here is a link to FactCheck.org’s check into the situation. Here’s another link to a site unfamiliar to me, PunditFact, also rejecting the slander.
Addendum: it would be interesting to trace all these mail and web sites and see if they actually lead back to one person or organization, out to discredit McCain. Beyond my resources, though.
