Some perspective is in order

The most recent LITD post is my first thoughts on hearing that John McCain had discontinued brain cancer treatments. My intention was to give a balanced assessment of the lasting effects the various periods of his life will have on our national life.

As you read, I included the profoundly disappointing aspects as well as the sublimely noble aspect, and those in between.

But Daren Jonescu invites us to size him up against the Very Stable Genius, and the Arizona Senator comes off looking pretty good by comparison:

McCain lost a presidential election against a young phenomenon adored by the media and the leftist elite.
Trump (barely) won a presidential election against a decrepit catastrophe despised by everyone who wasn’t getting paid to praise her.

McCain bent over backwards to be civil to a fault toward his election opponent.
Trump has never been civil, couldn’t define the word, and would spell it incorrectly at least seven times out of ten.

McCain was fairly accused by Republican voters of pandering to the media too much.
Trump has spent the last twenty years literally doing nothing but pandering to the media, to the delight of Republican voters.

McCain, by politician standards, could be quite eloquent when he cared about a topic.
Trump, by elementary school standards, is incoherent even when talking about the only topic he cares about, namely Donald Trump.

McCain appeased the grassroots by reluctantly promising to build a wall, though we’ll never know whether he would really have done it.
Trump built a massive grassroots cult by enthusiastically promising to build a wall, though we knew perfectly well he would never really do it.

McCain was a bit of a womanizer after returning from five and a half years in a Vietnamese POW camp.
Trump, who phoned in sick during the war, calls his life as a womanizer his “personal Vietnam.”

McCain crashed several planes.
Trump is a train wreck.

McCain wore a bad combover.
Trump is a bad combover.

McCain sometimes seemed too sympathetic to the Democrats.
Trump was a Democrat supporter for most of his adult life, donated massively to Democrats for years, and says Bill Clinton was the best President of his lifetime.

McCain was probably less of a “maverick” than he styled himself as.
Trump is a complete fake whose true mind cannot be defined because it does not exist, and who merely pretends to be whatever he thinks will gain him a personal advantage today, regardless of whether it contradicts anything or everything he said yesterday.

McCain moved like a man crippled by years of torture as a prisoner of war.
Trump moves like a man who has never opened a window by himself in his life.

McCain learned a secret code used to communicate through walls with fellow POWs.
Trump learned to use rhetorical dog whistles to become the only Republican president publicly praised and supported by America’s most prominent white nationalist leaders.

McCain frequently and openly called Vladimir Putin a thug and an evil man.
Donald Trump…well, do we have to say it?

McCain publicly admitted to having been a poor pilot and having made mistakes in his life.
Trump declares he has never asked for God’s forgiveness, and has nothing to apologize for.

McCain tended to dismiss much of the so-called conservative media, and especially talk radio, as a cynical, rabble-rousing, profit-seeking entertainment industry.
Trump proved that McCain was right.

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I see nothing here to take issue with.