Senator John McCain rose from his sick bed and traveled thousands of miles from Arizona to Washington D.C. just to make sure the disastrous Trumpcare could live on. Even worse, he gave president Trump, who had disrespected him so many times, a crucial legislative victory. He should have stayed home instead.

Please, tell me if this is not a lesson in irony: McCain, who just had all the best possible medical care for his brain cancer covered by world class insurance paid by us, taxpayers, returned to Capitol Hill to cast a vote to continue the debate about whatever evil plan Mitch McConnell can finally concoct to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. 

No one knows –certainly not McCain- what the final product will look like. What is known is that the decision will be between stripping 30 million, 22 million, or 18 million Americans of the kind of medical attention keeping the good senator alive. This horror is what McCain enabled with his dramatic return to Washington.

Stop calling McCain “one of the good Republicans,” a man of integrity, etc. Any politician who chooses party over country in a decision affecting the wellbeing –even the survival-- of as many as 30 million men, women and children is no man of integrity. Certainly, the man who inflicted upon the country the racist, ignorant Sarah Palin, is no better than McConnell, Paul Ryan and the rest of the scheming, shameless Republicans seeking power at the expense of the nation they were elected to serve.

Please, tell me if this is not a lesson in irony: McCain, who just had all the best possible medical care for his brain cancer covered by world class insurance paid by us, taxpayers, returned to Capitol Hill to cast a vote to continue the debate about whatever evil plan Mitch McConnell can finally concoct to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. 

No wonder Trump, the worst of the lot, who had repeatedly insulted and mocked him, now cannot stop praising the 80-year-old senator. 

"So great that John McCain is coming back to vote. Brave - American hero! Thank you John," Trump wrote. 

Two years before, candidate Trump wasn’t so enthusiastic about the Arizona senator’s courage. "He is not a war hero," he said about McCain, who had been a POW during the Vietnam war. “I like people who were not captured.” Obviously, the senator, faithful to the GOP to a fault, was willing to forgive and forget the mockery and the insults -- and do Trump’s bidding.

“I voted for the motion to proceed to allow debate to continue and amendments to be offered,” McCain lectured his fellow senators. “I will not vote for the bill as it is today. It's a shell of a bill right now.”

Yet, the white knight image the Arizona senator intended to project was hopelessly tainted by a simple fact: He could have taken a principled stand and voted “no,” but he didn’t. Shamefully, he voted “yes,” shredding to pieces whatever was left of his legacy.

“It's called having your cake and eating it too,” said Washington journalist Patricia Guadalupe. “He is appealing to the wingnut crowd while trying to make a ridiculously useless point.” 

Yes, the good senator should have stayed home.