John McCain and Media Lies of Omission

I'm not a huge fan of John McCain. Mostly because I believe he was one of the most hawkish Senators around pushing America's disastrous foreign policy. But still, I didn't want to say much because you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead and all.

But then the endless media charade about this "great American patriot" who was a "war hero" and "maverick" and "stood up to Trump" or something. Indeed, it seemed like much of the praise of McCain was little more than a rebuke of Trump. As this indescribably embarrasing headline from Susan Glasser in The New Yorker made clear:

Yes, a funeral attended by George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Henry Kissinger is a #Resistance meeting. Give me a break!

But more than just the never ending media praise, this whole charade made me think more about the whole "fake news" debate. It's not really that the media lies all the time (although they do plenty, check out this list of retractions and false stories by CNN).  More often than not, it's about what they omit and what they push. Think of this whole Russiagate thing. The media could just as easily (and by that, I mean much, much more easily) make a narrative about Saudi Arabia influencing American politics with the petrodollar and overt bribes/blackmail. Or they could do the same with Israel, the neocons and AIPAC. Yet they focus on Russia. 

So back to John McCain. During McCain's 2000 campaign against George W. Bush, there was a "conspiracy theory" that McCain was actually a Tokyo Rose figure who broadcast communist propaganda and wasn't even tortured. He even confronted Bush about sharing the stage with someone who claimed McCain "abandoned American veterans."

As far as not being tortured, or abandoning veterans goes, there is evidence for that conclusion, but it is by no means proven and I would never say it was a fact. But the claim that McCain broadcast communist propaganda during the Vietnam war (a claim that was hotly denied for decades) has been undeniably confirmed. A few years ago, they found this recording in the national archives:

While this very well might have been done under duress, why is the media ignoring it? And why is it acceptable that McCain lied about it? Again, I would prefer to let bygones be bygones. But this semi-religious and seemingly endless praise for McCain cannot be left to just stand on its own since, it would also seem to quite obviously be an attempt to justify and vindicate America's indefensible foreign policy.