The Daily Double

So, on Monday, dear sweet precious Meghan McCain was at it again on The View, this time accusing President Biden of "doing grave spiritual harm to himself and harm to this country" because he supports abortion. She added, "He’s going to have to ultimately talk to his Creator when the time comes as we all do, and reconcile his politics with his personal faith."

It was just another in an ongoing series of the terminally petulant Ms. McCain feeling entitled in proclaiming herself a victim for pretty much anything she doesn't like, based on a sense of superiority provided to her by being the daughter of a former presidential candidate.

To be clear, I don't think Meghan McCain is without abilities.  It's just that there are many people with abilities -- many even much-greater than hers (some less) -- who are unknown to the national public because their fathers are not former presidential candidates.  And if Meghan McCain wants to use that fortunate chance of birth to give her a foundation for a national platform, including co-hosting a national talk show, fine, that's not unreasonable.  Use what you've got.  But once given such a platform in life, it's always struck me as best to build upon what that and not just use it to so-regularly whine about feeling victimized because you aren't getting your way about everything and deserve to because you are the daughter of a former presidential candidate.

I note all this because I've always been pleased that when Meghan McCain came to attention because her father was running for president in 2008 and she seemed sane and reasonable to most of my liberal friends, I would argue back that, no, she only seemed sane and reasonable compared to other Republicans, and only just barely that.

And I mention this because there were two Republicans around that same time about who I had this same debate with my friends -- that they seemed sane and reasonable to my friends, but I argued that it was only compared to other Republicans.  The other was...Lindsey Graham.

I wish I had been wrong.  But I feel very comfortable saying that I was absolutely right, about both.  

The bigger argument was about Lindsey Graham.  Meghan McCain was a fairly unknown quantity, so people didn't put up a huge argument -- they didn't know enough about her -- they only disagreed and would say, "I like her."  But Lindsey Graham was a pretty substantial public figure at the time.  And not just a U.S. Senator, but also a Navy JAG officer.  And he did occasionally take some impressive, fair-minded positions for a Republican.  The problem was that he also was taking some significantly unfair-minded ones, and I always thought you didn't get too many bonus points for being fair and decent, that that's supposed to be the starting point for all people.  Yes, one such admire "fair and decent" -- because it's right and proper and basic and standard, and you admire such things.  But you shouldn't be seen as special for it, most especially in a way that forgives all the times you act reprehensibly.  And Lindsey Graham acted reprehensibly enough to make me thing, "Gee, that's not actually a very good person."  We're supposed to be fair and decent.  When you wander off that reservation too far and too often, it doesn't bode well.

And it hasn't boded well over the years for Lindsey Graham, who has now gone full-crackpot fascist, nor for the princess-in-training Meghan McCain, who is at the point where she would feel personally victimized for 5,000 years of Jewish oppression because she once ate a bagel.

What's also somewhat interesting is that Meghan McCain and Lindsey Graham have one big thing in common.  John McCain.  He was Graham's closest friend in the Senate,  And obviously her father.  Whether their recent growth in ethereal petulance and out-of-control self-righteousness has blossomed in the years after John McCain passed away specifically because of that, taking away their protective moral compass and unleashed the whiney kraken within, or whether it's just a coincidence of timing, I don't know.  After all, sometimes it takes a while for a person's wild immaturity to mature and come to full blossom.  I suspect it's a little of both.

But mainly, every time I see Meghan McCain and Lindsey Graham go Full Self-Righteous Authoritarian Crazy, my first reactions is for every corpuscle in my body to cringe, and my second is to wish I could find every person I argued with about them long ago and say, "I told you so -- and I wish I was wrong."