{"id":29588,"date":"2018-05-06T00:37:13","date_gmt":"2018-05-06T00:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29588"},"modified":"2018-05-06T00:37:13","modified_gmt":"2018-05-06T00:37:13","slug":"sen-mccain-shares-good-times-and-bad-with-his-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29588","title":{"rendered":"Sen. McCain shares good times and bad with his friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/biden-and-mccain.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-29589\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/biden-and-mccain-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/biden-and-mccain-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/biden-and-mccain.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I hate, despise, detest the thoughts I am about to express in this blog post, but it needs to be said that they&#8217;re talking openly about the end for U.S. Sen. John McCain.<\/p>\n<p>His friends are gathering to wish the senator well as he battles a virulent and aggressive form of brain cancer. Sen. McCain is presenting a brave public front, but it is looking grim &#8230; or so it appears, according to recent media reporting.<\/p>\n<p>His longtime friends, such as former Vice President Joe Biden, have visited him. McCain reportedly has told Biden to &#8220;not give up on politics,&#8221; in what appears to be something of a tacit endorsement of him to run for president in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>He has written of his regret in not selecting another dear friend, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, to be his vice-presidential running mate in 2008 when he lost the presidential election to Sen. Barack H. Obama. Lieberman has visited his friend, too, in Arizona.<\/p>\n<p>There have been many others, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/05\/05\/us\/politics\/john-mccain-arizona.html\">according to The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is this stunner, as reported by the Times: Sen. McCain&#8217;s &#8220;intimates&#8221; have informed the White House that the senator wants Vice President Mike Pence to attend his funeral, but not Donald Trump, with whom McCain &#8220;has had a rocky relationship.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hmm. Imagine that. Trump&#8217;s disparagement of McCain&#8217;s heroic service during the Vietnam War seems to have stuck in the senator&#8217;s craw since Trump declared that Sen. McCain was a &#8220;war hero only because he was captured&#8221; by North Vietnamese. Trump, of course, didn&#8217;t acknowledge the torture McCain endured during his more than five years as a captive in Hanoi during the Vietnam War. Or that McCain refused an early release because he didn&#8217;t want to abandon his fellow POWs while giving the North Vietnamese a PR bonanza, given that McCain&#8217;s father commanded U.S. naval forces during that time.<\/p>\n<p>I have grown to admire Sen. McCain over many years. I didn&#8217;t vote him for president. I don&#8217;t regret my decision to endorse his opponent in 2008, Barack Obama. Nor do I shy away from my view that McCain is an honorable man who has given far more in service to his country than almost anyone.<\/p>\n<p>I want him to defeat the illness that has ravaged him. I fear he won&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, I am preparing for some deep sadness.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hate, despise, detest the thoughts I am about to express in this blog post, but it needs to be said that they&#8217;re talking openly about the end for U.S. Sen. John McCain. His friends are gathering to wish the senator well as he battles a virulent and aggressive form of brain cancer. Sen. McCain &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29588\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sen. McCain shares good times and bad with his friends<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[540,1424,2505,2512,2546,3067,3360,3690],"class_list":["post-29588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-donald-trump","tag-joe-biden","tag-joe-lieberman","tag-john-mccain","tag-mike-pence","tag-ny-times","tag-pow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29590,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29588\/revisions\/29590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}