‘Yes, Master’ Says the Compliant John McCain to a Fawning Media

Beware of a politician stating the obvious.

U.S. Senator John McCain said that in order to “preserve democracy” you must have a free press. He says that without it he’s “afraid we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time.”

“That’s how dictators get started,” McCain added in a clip of the interview released on Saturday.

Well of course that’s how dictators get started. Who has proposed getting rid of the First Amendment? I know that under the previous administration, the Attorney General talked openly of prosecuting people who criticize Islam or question so-called climate science. Under the previous administration, the IRS got caught hampering the ability of Tea Party groups to support their candidates for Congress. Those are the kinds of things dictators do. Where was John McCain then?

“They get started by suppressing free press,” the Senator responded when asked if he was referring to Trump’s recent tweet that dishonest media are a threat to Americans.

McCain added that “the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press.”

“I’m not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator, I’m just saying we need to learn the lessons of history,” McCain said in the NBC interview.

It sounds like John McCain is the one who wants to thwart freedom. He seems to view the media as above criticism. To criticize the media, he implies, is to threaten freedom of the press.

But what about when the media lies, and never takes accountability for those lies? What about obvious distortion, habitual one-sidedness, factual context-dropping and daily, open bias? If a President calls out a media on these things, does that mean he’s proposing dictatorship? Does the First Amendment imply we cannot question the media itself when it’s wrong or biased, as journalism often has been throughout human history?

John McCain’s career is a sad one — mostly for those who care about the liberty and rights this entrenched career politician pretends to value. He survived Vietnam only to become an aged caricature of the corruption that is so part of our government establishment. He survived a war against a Communist dictatorship only to apologize for, and enable, a Communist-like media now inhabiting the United States.

People like John McCain should be held accountable for their words. Somebody must penetrate their Washington bubble of pretentious self-righteousness. If he’s implying that President Trump’s criticism of the media is tantamount to proposing shutdown of the First Amendment, then he should prove it. If he can’t prove it, then he should stop implying it.

In a twisted and literal way, John McCain is right. Democracy will not survive without the media as we know it. But individual rights do not depend on democracy; they depend on the Bill of Rights, the First and Second Amendments most of all, and a court system unflinching in its willingness to uphold those rights. In democracies, rights can easily be voted away. The media as we know it promotes democratic socialism, not individual rights. If people start to challenge or stand up to the bullying and dishonest media, then the kind of socialism so valued by hypocrites like John McCain will be endangered. We know which side he’s on, don’t we?

John McCain’s entire career has been one of trying to get the 95 percent of the media who hate Republicans to please, oh please like him. We see how well that worked for him when he ran for President in 2008. And yet decade after decade, the old entrenched apologist continues to plead with his perceived betters: “Yes, Master. Please, please like me. I’ll say anything to get you to like me.”

No, John McCain, you’re saying that President Trump is a dictator — and then denying it. That’s political evasion, something you’ve been doing for longer than most of us have been alive. When in the hell are you going to retire? Will you ever go away?

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