XPost: alt.society.liberalism, sac.politics, alt.politics.republicans   
   XPost: alt.politics.trump   
   From: obits@azcentral.com   
      
   In 1885, Ulysses S. Grant was dying. And even though his   
   presidency had been tarred by scandal, and his command of the   
   Union Army in the Civil War had destroyed much of the South, he   
   was honored from New Orleans to Boston.   
      
   “The dying Grant exerted a powerful symbolic influence upon the   
   American imagination,’’ Ron Chernow writes in his new Grant   
   biography. “Union and Confederate soldiers alike expressed   
   concern for his plight.’’ Several Confederate officers visited   
   Grant in his final days. Two were pallbearers at his funeral.   
      
   That’s how it was in U.S. politics: The adage “never speak ill   
   of the dead’’ applied also to the dying, including one’s enemies.   
      
   Until now. In what are probably Sen. John McCain’s last months,   
   the former POW and Republican presidential nominee has been   
   denounced as a traitor, a collaborator, an egomaniac, a   
   blowhard, a fake, a liberal and, worst of all, irrelevant.   
      
   It’s a sign of the times, says Thomas Whalen, a Boston   
   University political historian: “We’ve devolved to the point   
   politically where everything is fair game.’’ Even illness and   
   death.   
      
   McCain, diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, has mostly been   
   lionized by fellow members of Congress, constituents and the   
   public. But:   
      
   A White House staffer joked in a meeting that the administration   
   didn’t need to worry about McCain’s opposition to the candidate   
   for CIA director because he was dying; after the comment became   
   public, the White House issued no apology.   
   Retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a Fox News analyst, claimed   
   that when McCain was held during the Vietnam War “torture worked   
   on John. … That’s why they called him ‘Songbird John.’’’   
   When it was reported that McCain did not want Trump — who during   
   the 2016  campaign said he was a hero only because he was   
   captured — invited to his funeral, McCain’s fellow Senate   
   Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah termed the desire “ridiculous.’’   
   (He later wrote McCain a letter of apology.)   
   Online, McCain is commonly accused, despite the findings of an   
   official inquiry, of negligence in a Vietnam War aviation   
   accident that killed 134 on the carrier USS Forrestal. He’s also   
   been called a crybaby and an egomaniac, “a liberal in wolf’s   
   clothing’’ and “the foulest mouth in the Senate.’’   
      
   On Twitter, someone asked: “Who’s got John McCain in the Dead   
   Pool?’’   
      
   One tweet with McCain’s photo, headlined "TRAITOR," falsely   
   accuses him of giving information “that led to the downing of 60   
   aircraft’’ and training “North Vietnamese air defense   
   personnel.’’   
      
   These slanders do not go unnoticed. McCain’s daughter Meghan, a   
   host on the TV show The View, tweeted of the TRAITOR claim, “I   
   regret responding to such a hideous comment.’’   
      
   McCain isn’t the only one who’s fair game. When Melania Trump   
   was hospitalized for kidney surgery, novelist Stephen King, a   
   political liberal, tweeted: "Not to be snarky, but Melania can   
   probably use a week’s rest from Blabbermouth Don. Sounds   
   heavenly to me."   
      
   The phenomenon “goes deeper than politics,’’ says Robert North   
   Roberts, co-author of the Encyclopedia of Presidential   
   Campaigns. “It’s the polarization of the entire nation.’’ Like   
   rampaging soccer hooligans, we take our side, no matter how   
   boorish our players or how honorable the other’s.   
      
   Convenient amnesia, ever since Hamilton   
   Before things changed, many public figures got the benefit of   
   the doubt at the end of life.   
      
   ? After Sen. Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain   
   cancer in 2008, he remained as partisan as ever. His first vote   
   upon returning to Washington after beginning cancer treatment   
   was to break a GOP filibuster. And after the election he worked   
   zealously for the most controversial piece of legislation of the   
   past decade, the Affordable Care Act.   
      
   But Kennedy was widely praised by members of both parties —   
   including McCain and Hatch. Whalen notes that there was even   
   little or no mention of Chappaquiddick (the island where a young   
   woman died after the senator drove the car in which they were   
   riding off a bridge and failed to immediately report the   
   accident.)   
      
   ? In 1974 President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace during   
   the Watergate scandal. But when he took sick and died 20 years   
   later, he was widely hailed as a Cold War statesman who’d   
   established diplomatic relations with Communist China and   
   détente with the Soviet Union. Eulogists at his funeral included   
   the Democratic president, Bill Clinton.   
      
   ? After leaving the White House, former President John Quincy   
   Adams was elected in 1830 to the House of Representatives. He   
   became one of the nation’s most implacable opponents of slavery,   
   and thus a villain across the South.   
      
   Yet when he returned to the House chamber in 1846 after a   
   stroke, Southern members were among those who gave him a   
   standing ovation. And when he died two years later, the   
   Southerners praised his character and patriotism – even though   
   his final vote, moments before collapsing, was a loud "no" to a   
   resolution thanking some generals for service in the Mexican War   
   (which Adams had opposed).   
      
   ? Alexander Hamilton was the most controversial of the Founding   
   Fathers. But when he was killed in a duel in 1804, even the   
   viciously partisan newspapers of his rival, Thomas Jefferson   
   mourned rather than cheered. Hamilton’s reputation, in decline   
   at the time of the duel, soared.   
      
   Why do we do it?   
   There are at least four reasons for why McCain has been attacked   
   in ways that once would have been unthinkable:   
      
   Social media   
   Here’s M. J. Crockett, Yale psychologist: “Digital media may   
   exacerbate the expression of moral outrage by inflating its   
   triggering stimuli, reducing some of its costs, and amplifying   
   many of its personal benefits.’’  Translation: Trolling is hard   
   to resist, easy to do and may impress your friends.   
      
   A decade ago, social media was not the force it is now. Ted   
   Kennedy’s memory was one of many beneficiaries. “Kennedy got a   
   pass,’’ says Whalen. “He might not today.’’   
      
   And if something negative was said of the sick or dying, the   
   news media might censor it, sometimes to protect a candid   
   official from himself. “This sort of thing always went on, but   
   you wouldn’t get a forum for it,’’ Roberts says.   
      
   Donald J. Trump   
   The president has long articulated two key personal   
   philosophies: never apologize and always retaliate. (“Get even   
   with people,’’ he once said. “If they screw you, screw them back   
   10 times as hard.’’)   
      
   So McCain’s opposition to Trump’s presidential candidacy and his   
   vote against his own party’s attempt to repeal the ACA cannot be   
   forgotten, and the White House staffer’s remark cannot be walked   
   back. Trump is not the first president to nurture such   
   instincts; so did Nixon and Andrew Jackson. But, says Roberts,   
   “We’ve never had a president who’s so open about it.’’   
      
   The 2016 election   
   The result was close enough to make Republicans nervous about   
   subsequent elections. Seeing little margin for error, they’ve   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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