OPINION:
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the go-to guy for mainstream media members who need a Republican voice in order to claim balance and non-bias in their stories, took to CNN over the weekend to offer up some criticisms of President Donald Trump.
What’d he say?
McCain weighed in on the wiretapping allegations Trump’s slung Barack Obama’s way with typical Not a Friend of This President bodyslam.
First he told “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper he had “no reason to believe” Trump’s charge was true. And then he said, in essence, Trump ought to put up or shut up.
“I have no reason to believe that the charge is true, but I also believe that the president of the United States could clear this up in a minute,” McCain said, CNN reported. “All he has to do is pick up the phone, call the director of the CIA, director of national intelligence and say, ’OK, what happened?’ “
Maybe. And maybe Trump, like his Newsman CEO buddy Chris Ruddy previously explained, is “confident he will be proven right” about the wiretapping.
McCain also said during this same CNN interview: “I do believe on issues such as this, accusing a former president of the United States of something which is not only illegal, but just unheard of, that requires corroboration. I’ll let the American people be the judge, but this is serious stuff.”
Time will tell, won’t it?
In the meantime, though, it’d be nice if members of Trump’s own party could quit helping the left tear down his administration.
Oh, we know McCain has a grudge, maybe even a vendetta, against Trump. Back in July 2015, Trump said from Iowa that McCain was “not a war hero.” He then went on to add, “I like people that weren’t captured. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” He was referring to the five years McCain spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, after his plane was shot down in 1967.
A red-faced McCain has never been able to get over that remark — or, perhaps, over his own failed 2008 bid for the presidency and the fact Trump has been able to tread where he could not.
Either way, it’s time for McCain to come out of the Democratic shadows and put on his big-boy GOP pin.
It’s getting tiresome seeing his name in headlines like this, just in from the Los Angeles Times: “McCain joins Democrats in seeking proof of Trump wiretap claim.”
Of course, McCain’s not the only Republican waiting for answers on the wiretap claims. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has joined in the call to “get to the bottom” of the matter, and Rep. Deven Nunes, R-Calif., has said the House was willing to investigate.
But McCain’s the face in the media, always willing to offer up the Democratic talking points against the president, under guise of being a Republican. As Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News, about the wiretap scandal: “We’ll make a comment after [House and Senate] findings are complete.”
If only McCain would agree to the same.
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