obitcheries

United States Senator John McCain is dead.
His funeral has been used by some as an opportunity to criticise President Donald Trump.
Criticising political rivals at a funeral is normally considered a bit infra dig  because they can't really talk back to a dead man.
As a young fighter pilot Senator McCain was captured during the Vietnam war and supposedly refused offers by the communists to release him.
The communist Viet Cong knew he was the son of an Admiral and were inclined to treat him with what we might call paradoxical favouritism.
McCain insisted on being treated like the other American prisoners.
His captors took him at his word.
He was held in squalor and tortured.
Back in America he became a long serving Senator.
In more recent years he was himself a Presidential candidate.
During the Republican Party's nomination season, members of his own party who perhaps supported other candidates and may not have been objective or fair, warned that Senator McCain had a volcanic temper and should not be trusted with the nuclear codes.
There was no evidence of volcanic temper in Senator McCain's public persona over five decades.
He did have a weakness though for trading in wives when they weren't as good looking as they once were.
Still that's a common enough failing in these harsh atheistic times.
He was also a bit weak on sanctity of life issues, hence his popularity with media groups who routinely despised other Republicans.
In a full life replete with valour and accomplishment, he will be remembered best of all for an earlier clash while still living with Donald Trump. This occurred when Mr Trump was seeking the Republican nomination to stand for the Presidency.
Senator McCain told reporters: "Trump's supporters are crazies."
This comment was repeated to Mr Trump by an interviewer who attempted to stop Mr Trump answering it by adding: "And John McCain's a war hero."
Mr Trump did answer.
He said: "He's not a war hero. Is he a war hero? Because he got captured? I prefer my heroes not to get captured."
Personally I thought neither Donald Trump nor John McCain were discredited by the exchange.