By Rick Manning — Senator John McCain went all whacko bird to the Huffington Post attacking fellow Republican Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. His fellow Republican Senators crime was to have had the audacity to actually stand up to power and force the Obama Administration to accept that the U.S. Constitution does not allow the random killing of its citizens on American soil.
The fact that this issue was even in question is stunning in and of itself, as Attorney General Eric Holder’s month’s long refusal to reject the notion of the federal government assassinating its own citizenry without any semblance of due process brought it to a head during the confirmation debate over CIA Director John Brennan.
Since the Rand Paul filibuster, McCain has been In a pique of rage that Paul actually accomplished something by fighting for his beliefs and the basic American concept of innocence until proven guilty.
Not content to just take to the Senate floor to attack his colleague from Kentucky, McCain returned to his “maverick” roots by taking his attack to another level in the liberal blog Huffington Post.
Perhaps cementing his place as the most lamentable nominee for president in the history of the Republican Party, McCain’s Huffington Post whine included this gem, “It’s always the wacko birds on right and left that get the media megaphone,” in a story titled “John McCain: Getting Back To Maverick, With An Eye On Retirement.”
Ironic indeed given that McCain has made a political living being the politician who chased approval from the New York Times in exchange for criticizing Republican colleagues and policies.
Even more ironic is that the same media that McCain has coveted throughout his career abandoned him during his ill-fated presidential run, having found him no longer useful when he needed them most.
Sadly, it appears that nowadays the only time McCain gets energized is when he is attacking those within the Republican Party who are kicking at the good ole boy network to which the Senator from Arizona is now a charter member.
Too bad that he can’t work up the same vigor in fighting to defund Obamacare, defending the U.S. worker from the onslaught of environmental and labor regulations, or even stopping far left judicial choices who threaten to continue the deconstruction of the Constitution.
Instead, we see a venal John McCain who is having trouble adapting to the fact that his time is past, and rather than gracefully move out of the limelight that he has craved so voraciously, clings to it as his life preserver to relevance.
Quite a sad requiem that someone who could have spent the last four years of his public service fighting to preserve limited, constitutional government, instead has chosen to derogate those who are taking up the mantle that he gave up in his search for approval from the left.
Rick Manning (@rmanning957) is the Vice President of Public Policy and Communications for Americans for Limited Government
