McCain to Return for Healthcare Vote

Teresa Walsh at McClatchy: Sen. McCain Will Return to Senate Tuesday Ahead of Health Care Showdown.

Less than a week after announcing he has brain cancer, Sen. John McCain will return to the Senate as Republicans prepare to vote on Obamacare repeal and replacement.

The 80-year-old Arizona senator will be back on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

"Senator McCain looks forward to returning to the United States Senate tomorrow to continue working on important legislation, including health care reform, the National Defense Authorization Act, and new sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea," McCain's office said in a statement released Monday night.

McCain's absence put the future of the GOP effort to pass a new health care bill in jeopardy because the party cannot afford to lose votes. It needs 50 — Vice President Mike Pence would break a tie — to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with new health care legislation under Senate rules.

The fact that his office classified the Senate health care bill as "health care reform" is a sure sign that he will vote with the rest of his party — as is the fact that he's racing back a week after brain surgery to cast that vote.

I don't think they'd ask McCain to travel 2400 miles for an Obamacare vote that's going down. https://t.co/66JdMf94kn

— Jennifer Haberkorn (@jenhab) July 25, 2017

I know it's all the rage, especially while he's having health problems, to talk about John McCain as a man of decency and integrity, but I've rarely seen a reputation so undeserved.

He is an ill-tempered bully whose childhood nicknames were "Punk" and "McNasty," and who has said he has to "wake up daily and tell myself, 'You must do everything possible to stay cool, calm, and collected today.'"

He is an impulsive opportunist, who chose the catastrophically unqualified Sarah Palin as his running mate. (How he escapes judgment for that decision is a remarkable example of the endless good faith and forgiveness extended to white men, as well as the misogyny heaped upon women. Somehow, it has become Palin's fault for accepting the gig more than McCain's for offering it.)

He is a man with cruel humor, who has, among many other objectionable behaviors while serving as a United States Senator, "joked" about killing himself if the Democrats won a Senate majority, "joked" about bombing Iran, "joked" about bringing Jon Stewart an IED from Iraq as a gift, "joked" about domestic violence, "joked" about rape, and "joked" about how he's kind of a hothead. And that compilation ended in 2008.

Basically, McCain's the kind of guy who would fly back to D.C. after getting a life-saving surgery for which taxpayer-funded health insurance paid, just to cast a vote to take health insurance away from millions of people.

Tell me again what a man of quality he is.

Still. It's never too late to surprise me. I hope he does, and I'm fairly certain he won't.