Thinking out loud recently, I commented that I thought it was time for President Elect Donald Trump and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to bury the hatchet. During a heated primary campaign on July 18, 2015, Trump said he didn’t consider McCain a hero.
It was one of those foolish, off-the-cuff Trump remarks. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Trump also criticized McCain for not doing enough to correct the problems in the Veterans Administration.
If the president elect can meet with Mitt Romney, who slandered him during the campaign, and former vice president Al Gore for goodness sakes, certainly he can sit down with McCain and mend fences, I thought.
McCain and fellow Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), who seem to be joined at the hip, have voiced concern over Trump’s nomination of Rex Tillerson to secretary of state. Are they attempting to make Trump squirm? A little pay back?
Then there’s the story about McCain turning over a dossier on Trump to the FBI. Actually, I didn’t give much thought about McCain receiving the fake document. But last weekend I learned that it wasn’t the case of someone simply handing McCain the copy. The Guardian revealed that McCain “dispatched an emissary overseas (to meet with) an intermediary from a western allied state, who had informed McCain about the existence of the documents.” A former UK ambassador and British intelligence officer were said to be involved. Since then other papers have reported the McCain story.
Was this a case of the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee acting with concern over a document tying Trump to the Russians, or did he see this as an opportunity to get back at the president elect.
If there’s any move toward fence mending between Trump and McCain, I now believe the ball is in McCain’s court. If McCain strays and allows his personal grudge against Trump to cause the GOP‘s slim lead in the senate to lose important majority votes, he will become a pariah.
Like Rep. John Lewis, who is a hero for his civil rights efforts decades ago, McCain is a hero for his patriotism while being tortured in Vietnam. Now it’s time for a peaceful transition of power; to put personal feelings aside to respect the office of the president.
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