Barrett Rainey's Second Thoughts

It’s no secret ours has become an ever increasingly crass society. Entertainment, media, politics and even ordinary conversation.

Evidence is everywhere. Spend time around an elementary school playground, for example, and you’ll pick up words you might not have heard before. Not that kids know much about what they’re saying. They’re just repeating what they’ve heard all around them.

Crude, foul language in political affairs is not new but it’s getting increasingly personal. More and more, we’re seeing direct public, personal and cruel attacks on people and character. Obama and Clinton are prime examples.

Last week’s stories of slander and lies directed at John McCain were disgusting evidence of how low some folks will go. One incident was in the workplace – the other broadcast around the world by our “friends” at Fox.

A Trump White House Special Assistant was the source at a Communications Office staff meeting. She casually dismissed McCain’s comments on an upcoming Senate vote by saying “It doesn’t matter. He’s dying anyway.”

As you read this, that woman still has her job. Why that is someone else is going to have to explain.

Adding more verbal excrement to the pile three days later, Trump Budget Director Mulvaney publically opined, while the remark was indeed tasteless, that’s not what concerned him. His ire was raised because the cruel remark was “leaked.” “Even worse,” he said.

So, I guess, if a murder is committed in the White House, it’s O.K. as long as no one talks to the media about it. DAMN!

The other outrageous and completely factless claim regarding McCain on Fox was from a retired general. Talking about torture in wartime, McCain’s name came up because of his years in a North Vietnamese prison and the extreme physical abuse he endured.

The general – who will remain nameless here – said “torture works” and pointed to what he called “Songbird John” and accused McCain of betraying his country while being tortured. A claim repeatedly proven untrue!

This “embarrassment-to-all-uniforms” has popped off with many crackpot statements and wild false claims in the past. He’s never been a POW. Why was he being used as an “expert?” Yet another “Fox Fool” with clay feet up to his knees and one of a series of “experts” used by that network that have subsequently been exposed as frauds.

McCain is in hospice care at his home about 15 miles from where I’m writing this. One requisite for such care is a diagnosis of less than six months to live. That medical opinion was made some months ago. Yet, McCain is keeping in contact with associates and issues on Capitol Hill. It’s gotta be tough.

The McCain examples of character assassination and baseless lies are only the most recent aimed at a public figure. We hear, read and watch more every day. To our national shame. Remember Trump wildly mimicking a crippled reporter? Or, referring to McCain, saying he was no hero because he was captured? Or his giving people he doesn’t like grotesque nicknames – “Crooked Hillary” or “Lying Comey?”

I can’t lay blame entirely on our dangerous and unskilled president. But, I will say, he’s given his outright approval to such crude, foul and profane public behavior by his own conduct. He has set the example for millions of crass people who’ve joined his cacophony of slander, lies and outrageous language. Racist and anti-Semitic acts are being readily accepted by millions as “the way things are.”

Well, they aren’t!

Our nation – and much of the world – is in a huge state of flux. In nearly every way. What’s past is past and we’ll never see life as it was just a few years ago. But, what we will see and experience is entirely up to us. What we do today – what we accept today – who we’ve become today – will be our future.

As long as John McCain has breath, he’ll be interested and involved in where this country’s headed. We all could use a lot more of that to set before those kids on the playground.

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