Half-Staff

If it's a new month, week, day, hour, minute or whatever, there must be a new controversy about Trump.  It just never stops.  The latest action that the media is losing their minds over is Trump's supposed snub of John McCain.  Of course, if you've been paying attention, you know this goes back a ways.  It really came into the public eye when, during the campaign, Trump made a crack about McCain's heroism as a result of being held captive as a POW in North Vietnam for 5 1/2 years.  He said he didn't particularly think McCain was a hero because hero's don't get captured.  It was an idiotic, insensitive, jackass kind of thing to say.  But it was Trump, so he's gonna say whatever he wants.  He and  McCain, as you would suspect, butted heads over a number of issues.  The thing that permanently ripped it was McCain being the deciding vote to not dismantle Obamacare, one of the signature promises of Trump's campaign.  That was like sticking the knife in and twisting real hard.  So no love lost.  And everyone knows it.

Fast forward and McCain dies from brain cancer on Saturday.  I'm sure Trump heard about it and thought he'd offer an olive branch and sent out a tweet offering support and condolences.  Of course, since it's Trump it was either not enough, not quick enough, or not worded right.  Then the stories emerged quoting "un-named sources" that Trump had rejected doing anything more than the tweet.  And then heads started to explode this morning when the ever watchful press noticed that the flag over the White House was not at half-staff.  They took this as the ultimate insult.  They again quoted "anonymous sources" to say many Trump advisors had told him to do more, but he didn't listen to them.  It was a blaring headline on all the new sites this morning.  Thankfully, I was on the golf course and could ignore them without much problem.

So, based on my experience in Washington DC and in the bureaucracy, here's what I think happened. To be sure, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and am not looking to castrate him at every opportunity like so many.  I bet Trump heard about the death on Saturday and took to the medium he uses most and is comfortable with and tweeted out what he thought was a perfectly reasonable first expression of condolences.  Whoever was responsible for the flag (some low level functionary) took the action to lower the flag to half-staff.  For a Senator the rule is to lower it the day of death and the next day (which is Sunday).  Meanwhile the staff was working on a position paper detailing what actions would be taken to honor McCain.  It was Sunday.  I don't know about you but I was at the beach.  As the paperwork made it's way through channels Monday came around and whoever is responsible for the position of the flag rightly raised it to full staff on Monday morning and heads started to explode throughout the media.  Which is sorta funny because a lot of these jackasses didn't like McCain very much.  But the key is that they hate Trump more.  So anyway, the day unfolds and the staff realizes that their sense of urgency on this issue is nowhere near what the media's is.  So they rush through the directive describing all the actions that the administration would take to honor McCain (including a statement by the President) and support his family and by around noon the flag is lowered to half-staff and will remain in that position until the funeral.  But the damage was done.  Trump hates McCain and Trump doesn't give a shit about niceties when it comes to opponents.  Trump is so stupid he thinks a tweet is enough.  Trump is an asshole who won't even offer condolences other than a Tweet.  Trump was focused on the Mexican deal and couldn't be bothered.  And of course there were many variations on those themes.  The funny (not ha ha, but odd) thing is that I bet Trump didn't even have his focus on this issue.  I bet he expected that his staff would take care of the details, brief him and take appropriate action. To think that the President of the United States was aware of or cared about the position of the White House flag on Monday morning is idiocy.  It's idiocy, that is, unless you hate Trump and your goal is to vilify him at every turn and ultimately drive him from office.  The other funny (this time ha ha) thing is that they don't realize that this bullshit just makes them look stupid.  But once again...they are.

UPDATE:  Thought I'd come back and say what I assumed to be obvious.  If you've been reading at all you know my background.  I'm a career Naval Aviator.  My Father and Father-in-Law were career Navy.  My Son and Son-in-Law went to the U.S. Naval Academy.  In other words, my family is steeped in the sea service.  The Navy has been our life.  So it should come as no surprise that my admiration for John McCain is enormous.  He lived a wonderful, heroic, important life that truly made a difference.  His courage was beyond question.  He was the epitome, especially in his later years, of trying to reach across the aisle to get things done.  What I wrote above in no way minimizes or disparages John McCain.  He gave as good as he got in every battle and he doesn't need any sympathy or help.  And I don't think he'd appreciate the wildly and obviously partisan media using his death as a way to get at Trump.  So my comments did not in any way have to do with McCain the man.  Every American should agree that he was a hero and deserves our admiration, respect and love.