Former President Bill Clinton, right, talks with Rev. Jesse Jackson during the funeral service for Aretha Franklin at Greater Grace Temple, Friday, Aug. 31, 2018, in Detroit. Franklin died Aug. 16, 2018 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
The Trump bashing at the John McCain and Aretha Franklin funerals was monumentally juvenile.
Trump of course contributes to this by his own massive signal-to-noise problem. He doesn’t know how to shut his mouth when he’s ahead. With a roaring economy, he only has himself to blame if the Republicans lose the House in November. (Okay, some of the saboteurs in his own party will have contributed as well.)
But still, the bashers clearly lost by making the funerals once again about Trump. As childish as Donald can be, his detractors in politics and the media are far worse. They are more out of control than he is -- truly infantile.
Many of us suspected this would happen and decided to tune out. I know I did, even though I revered Aretha for many years (McCain not so much). But when I read Louis Farrakhan would be front and center at her funeral I knew something was wrong. Better to watch the US Open. Nadal, Federer and Djokovic are much more gracious in their comments and rarely bash each other. Also none of them are the least bit racist, to my knowledge.
As for McCain, it’s true Trump was way out of line attacking his military service, doubly so since Donald had none to offer of his own. But McCain, whose vaunted maverick qualities often seemed motivated more by narcissism than policy, had more than got his own back on Trump. His last minute vote to save Obamacare couldn’t have been more generated by pique.
And, far worse, though still unclear, is the senator’s role in the promulgation of the Steele Dossier. That could, as information evolves, make McCain party to an attempted coup -- not great for his historical record. At the very least, he appears to have been a useful pawn, his Trump hatred easily exploited.
This juvenile style is not unique to American politics (see Macron and Trudeau), but it’s clearly dominating this Labor Day weekend. With all the attacks on Trump, very little is said of his actual policies. It’s one ad hominem after another, like children throwing mud. You said this. You said that. Rarely, you did that. That even George W. Bush is participating is pathetic and sadly revealing of the emotional development of our ruling class, sometimes absurdly referred to as "elites."
Maybe this speaks ultimately to who goes into politics and the media, not the most adult people in our or any society. But with a fateful election looming, maybe it’s time to grow up -- even a little bit.
Roger L. Simon - co-founder and CEO Emeritus of PJ Media - is working on a novel set in the world of tennis.
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