http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-dont-want-to-hear-another-fucking-word-about-john-mcc-1792493680
John McCain—the original Maverick, ol’ Walnuts, the brave teller of truths—is somehow once again positioning himself, to credulous journalists, as a renegade Republican who isn’t afraid to buck his party, despite his three-decade record of not ever actually bucking his party in any meaningful way.
“John McCain just systematically dismantled Donald Trump’s entire worldview,” the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake says of a speech McCain gave in Munich, in which he didn’t mention the president, whose cabinet he has largely voted to confirm.
A more accurate way of phrasing “(ambivalently, agonizingly) taking on the president” might be “not actually taking on the president.” McCain has supported every one of Trump’s nominees besides one: budget director Mick Mulvaney, who lost McCain’s support because he has supported defense budget cuts. McCain’s sole inviolable principle is that we must spend an unlimited amount of money on war with everyone forever.
Ever since his longtime aide and ghostwriter Mark Salter wholly invented McCain’s “maverick” persona from whole cloth in the late 1990s, the sum total of McCain’s record of brave or maverick-y actions consists of “giving good quote to reporters.” That’s it.
It’s a valid criticism. Speaking out against Trump is a good thing but he’s not backing it up with his actions.