"When do we send them an airmail message?"

Question answered: February 28, 2026.

Nearly 20 years later.

On the occasion of Nikki Haley's calling Vivek Ramaswamy "scum," I look into the history of "scum" in my archive.

1. October 23, 2019 — blogged here — Trump called his antagonists "human scum":

The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

2. On October 24, 2019, I wrote "Troubled by Trump's use of the phrase 'human scum,' I decided to trace its usage, over the years..." This post traces the use of the phrase "human scum" in the NYT archive, beginning in 1897. I note: "The epithet rarely appeared until 2003, when it began coming up repeatedly in statements from the North Korean government. The first person called 'human scum' by the North Koreans was John Bolton."

2. In December 2017, according to The Daily Beast, Facebook was banning women who call men "scum" (because it, supposedly, "classifies white men as a protected group"). I wrote: "I don't support what Facebook is doing, but I do think the use of the word 'scum' warrants a historical note on 'SCUM' — The Society for Cutting Up Men. The author of 'The SCUM Manifesto,' Valerie Solanas, wasn't joking....'The Manifesto argues that SCUM [a revolutionary vanguard of women] should employ sabotage and direct action tactics... "If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President's stupid, sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade."'" Solanas became famous for shooting Andy Warhol.

3. On December 11, 2020, I blogged about a Wisconsin State Journal headline "Sen. Ron Johnson called 'delusional scum' for considering challenge to election." I asked "why is the fact that somebody hurled one particular epithet the subject of a headline? If the insult-hurler isn't important enough to name in the headline, why put one nasty insult in a headline?"

4. Back in January 2015, I blogged the immortal words of John McCain: "Get outta here you lowlife scum!"

5. On May 24, 2022, I happened to revisit Hunter S. Thompson’s 1994 obituary of Richard Nixon. Thompson wrote: "Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective journalism — which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. … You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful."

"Cindy can have Sleepy Joe!"

I hardly know Cindy McCain other than having put her on a Committee at her husband’s request. Joe Biden was John McCain’s lapdog. So many BAD decisions on Endless Wars & the V.A., which I brought from a horror show to HIGH APPROVAL. Never a fan of John. Cindy can have Sleepy Joe!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2020

"For years, critics have expressed disgust at Trump’s statement that 'I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn't lose any voters.' Yet..."

"... they now afford Biden the same immunity even if he turns into the ancient god Cronus and starts snacking on boiled babies."

Writes Jonathan Turley in "Why Joe Biden can do no wrong" (The Hill). Here's the mythical image:



Cronus was eating the babies raw, by the way. Not boiled. Maybe Turley is mixing it up with...



Anyway, what does Turley have to say here except to give us the statements of Biden supporters? I've been avoiding blogging this kind of stuff, because it's so disgusting and trite and I've seen it all before. I don't like to reward it by linking to it. But I'll link to Turley's summary:

Women’s rights attorney Lisa Bloom said she believes Biden did rape a female staffer and has lied about it publicly but she still will endorse him for president. She tweeted, “I believe you, Tara Reade ... sorry.” To use [Katha] Pollitt’s language, defending a rape victim is now a “luxury.” Likewise, Linda Hirshman wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times titled “I Believe Tara Reade. I’m Voting for Joe Biden Anyway.” She explained, “Democratic primary voters knew all about Mr. Biden’s membership in that boys’ club when there was still time to pick someone else. Alas ... I’ll take one for the team. I believe Ms. Reade, and I’ll vote for Mr. Biden this fall.”

"'Trust me': It’s a tired cliché, a throwaway line, but when you first encounter it in 'A Warning,' the new book by 'Anonymous,' who is identified here only as 'a senior Trump administration official,' it lands with a startling thud."

"Any revealing details have been explicitly and deliberately withheld to protect this person’s identity. Who is this 'me' that we’re supposed to trust? It’s a question that the anonymous author — who wrote an Op-Ed for The Times last year about resisting the president’s 'more misguided impulses' — might have anticipated, given how much of the book is devoted to the necessity of 'character'...  [E]verything in the text of 'A Warning' suggests a dyed-in-the-wool establishment Republican. There’s the typical talk about American exceptionalism and national security. There’s the eternal complaint that President Barack Obama was 'out of touch with mainstream America.' There’s a wistful elegy for 'our budget-balancing daydreams.' Yes, Anonymous is happy about the conservative judicial appointments, the deregulation, the tax cuts; what rankles is the 'unbecoming' behavior, the 'unseemly antics.' A big tell comes early on, when Anonymous reveals what “the last straw” was.... [T]he truly unforgivable act was when Senator John McCain died last year and Mr. Trump tried to hoist the flag on the White House above half-staff: 'President Trump, in unprecedented fashion, was determined to use his office to limit the nation’s recognition of John McCain’s legacy.'

Writes Jennifer Szalai "Book Review: In ‘A Warning,’ Anonymous Author Makes Case Against Re-election/The same official who wrote an Opinion essay in 2018 argues in a new book that the president’s contract shouldn’t be renewed" (NYT).

I was going to say that it sounds like this book won't be too interesting to anybody, but I looked on Amazon and see that it's the #1 bestselling book!

"Amelia Brookins, object handler, arranges a poster of Bella Abzug to be photographed at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History."

Photo caption at "The Smithsonian is digitizing political and military posters — 18,000 of them/More than 200 posters a day are being converted to make them more accessible to the public" (WaPo).

I like that job title, "object handler."

From the article:

Neither of the young Smithsonian object handlers knew of the formidable New York feminist and three-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Brookins said she had heard of Abzug, who died 21 years ago, for the “first time in the poster.”...

The Bella Abzug poster, in orange, black and white, shows her in one of her trademark hats, along with the slogan “This Woman’s Place is in the House . . . the House of Representatives!” (The Smithsonian also has one of her hats.)

You'll have to imagine the orange lettering:

Pictures really do help us to remember. Pictures of posters, posters that helped us to have an idea of the candidate at the time. The hat helped too. It's another visual (and the Smithsonian is preserving one of her hats). This woman really did imprint herself on the public by wearing a hat. She was the one with the hat.

These days, Trump is the one with a hat, and he imprinted himself on us by making his head distinctive not with a hat but with a very odd hairstyle.

Anyway, these kids today. They don't know much about history. But maybe if you give them some pictures, some glimmer will arise. And what do you really know about history? What's there in your odd head? Isn't it — to be fair — just some posters? Stuff like...

Oh, my. Does he looks like Trump?

It's so powerful, the visual. In the visual archive of my own head, there is John McCain leaning over and muttering the names of dictators in the ear of Amy Klobuchar at the Trump inaugural. Trump/dictator. It's connected.

And look at the hands... Trump has tiny hands... what is he hiding?

What does the candle mean? Why is it burning low? Look at the other hand, look at the objects... the pen, the sword, the orb...

We are all object handlers in the mind's visual archive.

Am I to think that while the new President was delivering his inaugural speech, John McCain was chanting something like "Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao" to steady his nerves and contain his rage?

According to HuffPo, Amy Klobuchar, speaking to "a crowd of more than 200" in Des Moines, Iowa, described her experience at Trump's inaugural like this:

I sat on that stage between Bernie and John McCain, and John McCain kept reciting to me names of dictators during that speech because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation. He understood it. He knew because he knew this man more than any of us did.

Recited? Seems like some sort of chant. But he was reciting to her. If I had to bet what the somewhat less than brilliantly articulate Klobuchar meant, I'm guessing that Trump would say a line and McCain would mutter a name to Amy. Something like this:

TRUMP: We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny...

MCCAIN [muttering to Amy]: Hitler...

TRUMP: I will fight for you with every breath in my body...

MCCAIN [muttering to Amy]: Stalin...

TRUMP: There should be no fear – we are protected, and we will always be protected...

MCCAIN [muttering to Amy]: Mussolini...

TRUMP: Now arrives the hour of action...

MCCAIN [muttering to Amy]: Mao.

"I was kind of surprised to be publicly disinvited to the funeral. I think that was an unnecessary step."

"They didn't have to embarrass me. And it wasn't just me. There were other good people in our campaign back in 2008 who were very very loyal to Senator McCain and worked with him and for him for many years, and they weren't invited to the funeral. So that was all weird. It's all — I don't know — I hope, I hope that doesn't happen to other people. It's unnecessary. It's kind of a gut punch."

Said Sarah Palin, reported, with video, at Mediaite.

"John McCain received the fake and phony dossier. You hear about the dossier? It was paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton."

"And John McCain got it. And what did he do? He didn’t call me. He turned it over to the FBI hoping to put me in jeopardy...."

Trump explains why he didn't like John McCain. It's about more than the dossier.

President Trump on John McCain: "I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this. I didn’t get thank you. That's ok. We sent him on the way, but I wasn't a fan of John McCain." pic.twitter.com/hG4XwOiIBO

— CSPAN (@cspan) March 20, 2019

Also in this clip is the part that I believe is getting the most press: "I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this. I didn’t get thank you. That's ok. We sent him on the way, but I wasn't a fan of John McCain." The way....

The NYT fact-checks Trump's speech and doesn't find anything false... though it finds a lot of things "misleading." Like this, about the dossier:

Senator John McCain did obtain a copy of the so-called Steele Dossier, which outlined a range of often salacious but unproven misdeeds by President Trump and his associates — and he did turn it over to the F.B.I. — but this occurred after the 2016 presidential election. The information provided by Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier, had already reached F.B.I. agents investigating Mr. Trump in September, and he met with agents in October.

I find the fact-check misleading. The most important thing I need to know is whether McCain knew the FBI already had the same information, and that's not in the NYT fact-check. Trump's main point has to do with McCain's state of mind, which was to put Trump in jeopardy, so give us what we need to judge the truth of what Trump actually said. Why won't you do that? Fake fact check!!

The NYT fact-check is also misleading in writing "outlined a range of often salacious but unproven misdeeds by President Trump." It should say something like "unproven allegations of misdeeds." It's written as if the NYT means to assert that Trump really did those things, but the dossier didn't prove it. Trump called it "the fake and phony dossier," and the NYT fact-check declines to talk about whether it's "fake and phony," and I have to presume that's because they don't want to say Trump is correct about that. Instead, the Times is still trying to float the idea that these really were "salacious... misdeeds by President Trump." Fake fact check!!

"Gone is the senator who once called the future president 'the world’s biggest jackass' and a 'race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot.'"

"With an eye toward re-election in 2020 in a state still on the Trump Train, Mr. Graham has climbed into the locomotive. 'I stepped up,' he boasted in an interview, 'and I’m getting rewarded for it by conservatives, and liberals are all upset.'"

From "What Happened to Lindsey Graham? He’s Become a Conservative ‘Rock Star’" (NYT). Part of what happened is that John McCain died. His friend Trey Gowdy is quoted saying that McCain was "the closest thing he ever had to a father." And McCain — as the Times puts it — "hated Mr. Trump."

[P]erhaps nothing has cemented Mr. Graham’s standing in Mr. Trump’s world as much as his performance at the divisive Supreme Court confirmation hearing for the future Justice Kavanaugh, who faced allegations of sexual assault from Christine Blasey Ford.His finger-wagging, lip-curling performance — “Boy, you all want power — God, I hope you never get it,” he snarled — was lampooned on “Saturday Night Live.” But Mr. Trump loved it.

“Wow! Remind me not to make you mad,” the president told Mr. Graham on a private call, the senator said...

Visions of 2020.

I see that John Kerry, the father of the now terminated Iran deal, is thinking of running for President. I should only be so lucky - although the field that is currently assembling looks really good - FOR ME!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2018

ADDED: I'm just checking over Trump's Twitter feed for the last week, and I don't think he took any of the bait that was thrown out from the days of McCain memorializing. Since Trump was banned from the funeral, he couldn't be criticized for failing to attend, but there was such an intense desire to attack him, and he wasn't doing anything at McCain.

So many shots were taken at him, presumably with the expectation that he'd tweet something that could be denounced as awful. Oh! The unforgivable disrespect, they could have cried.

Trump is so often portrayed as impulsively tweeting and so narcissistic that he just can't help himself. His Twitter feed from the last week shows that's not really true. And believing it's true can lead to missteps... like, perhaps, using a funeral as a platform for making political attacks.

AND: I wonder what kind of funeral events we'll see when John Kerry dies. We're treating Senators now the way we've treated Presidents? Not all Senators, of course, but some. McCain, at least. So... Senator + military hero + major party presidential nominee. That's Kerry, isn't it (depending on how you fiddle with military heroism, but he served in Vietnam and there was the heroism of opposition to the war)? It's certainly Bob Dole. And then why not Al Gore too? And you can't give all them the full McCain and not extend equal solemnities to Hillary Clinton, despite the lack of military service.

How are we going to do this? It can't be that what matters is the proximity to the next election and the usefulness of the casket as a soapbox. If McCain is to be regarded as unique — excluding Kerry, et al, from the full-scale theater of national mourning — then there must be some other reason for his uniqueness — that he was not retired from the Senate at the point of death? that he was a prisoner of war? that he was tortured? that he was bi-partisan?

RELATED: The eulogy given by Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. at Aretha Franklin's funeral offended her family:

Singer Stevie Wonder yelled out “black lives matter” after the pastor said, “No, black lives do not matter” during his eulogy. Williams had minimized the Black Lives Matter movement because of black-on-black crime. “Black lives must not matter until black people start respecting black lives and stop killing ourselves.” He also said “there are not fathers in the home no more” and said that a black woman cannot raise a black boy to be a man. Some people suggested that was disrespectful of Aretha Franklin, a single mother of four boys. His eulogy “caught the entire family off guard,” Vaughn Franklin said. The family had not discussed what Williams would say in advance, he said. “It has been very, very distasteful,” he said.

No, thanks. I'm not doing your funeral politics.

At the top of Memeorandum right now (click for enlargement and clarity):



I have not watched one second of the past week's Death-o-Rama. I'm not reading any articles like the ones listed above. I'm not looking enough to be able to say what I'm afraid I'd have to say if I looked — What a sordid display!

So I withhold my judgment — my judgment and my participation.

May all who died in the past 2 weeks — the known and the unknown — rest in peace.

"Let the dead bury their own dead" — Jesus Christ.

ADDED: I'll let Scott do the analysis. No annalysis here, just Scottalysis:

Scott Adams talks about how President Trump became the main theme of McCain’s funeral. And coffee. https://t.co/Ukx7wIXcGr

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) September 2, 2018

McCain's casket is carried out of his funeral to the same song that was Trump's first dance at his inaugural ball.

From "At McCain’s Memorial, Tears, Laughs and Allusions to the Man Not Invited" (NYT):

And in a nod to Mr. McCain’s affection for the rites of tradition and his penchant for the irreverent, the ceremony got underway with a choir’s rendition of 'Amazing Grace,' but his flag-draped coffin was taken out of the sanctuary by a military honor guard to the piped-in voice of Frank Sinatra singing "My Way."

To refresh your memory:



Here's how I blogged that in real time:

FINALLY: Trump and Melania appear. Her white dress reminds me of cake decorating. Her bare shoulders glimmer. Trump's tux has extremely baggy pants. He eschews tailoring. That's his style. They dance that dance that's not really a dance — just rocking back and forth. I'm worried that the bulky Trump will squish the delicate swirl of fabric that extends from Melania's extensive bust. The dress is floor-length and then some, and I'm sure he's treading on it. Don't tread on me!

The song is "My Way" — "I ate it up and spit it out."

I like the way the Times was careful enough to write "the piped-in voice of Frank Sinatra singing 'My Way'" and not just "Frank Sinatra singing 'My Way.'" Keep it factual. Frank Sinatra was not there. We all know he couldn't be there. He ate it up long ago and spit it out in 1998. But the newspaper of record does well to stick firmly to the facts. It was the piped-in voice of Frank Sinatra at John McCain's funeral. And probably many other funerals. Many people loathe that song, but there's always one person who thinks (or whose family thinks) that he is perfectly unique. Of course, they are right. But there's a big swagger to the song, a fuck you all, I'm outtahere. Which is nervy at a funeral. And downright scary at an inauguration.

The other thing I wanted to highlight from the NYT is this:

[T]he gathering’s most awkward moment: that belonged to [Tommy Espinoza, a Mexican-American leader], who invoked Sarah Palin, Mr. McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election. Ms. Palin was not invited to any of the memorial services, and Mr. McCain, in his final book and in an HBO documentary, said he wished he had defied his advisers and picked his friend, former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, for vice president.

Mr. McCain asked Mr. Espinoza’s wife, he recalled, what she would think about selecting a woman as his running mate.

“'Well, I really don’t care if it’s a man or a woman — if something happens to you, I want to make sure that person can run the country,’” Mr. Espinoza recounted his wife saying, prompting fleeting and muffled laughs in the church.

They laughed at Sarah Palin. Espinoza delivered a heavy-handed laugh cue and the people laughed and then stifled it.

IN THE COMMENTS: Bushman of the Kohlrabi said:

the piped-in voice of Frank Sinatra singing 'My Way'

But were there any actual pipes involved?

I'm just trying to hold the Times to their own Trump standards here.

I believe this refers to the press reaction to this famous Trump tweet:

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

The NYT published: "Trump Digs In on Wiretap, No Matter Who Says Differently."

In recent days, the president and his aides have tried to recast his original assertion to make it more defensible. Mr. Trump and Mr. Spicer have both noted that in two Twitter posts the president used quotation marks around the phrases “wires tapped” or “wire tapping,” which they said indicated that they were not meant to be taken literally....

The Times didn't even put quotation marks around "piped-in."

"With the presidential election only 3 weeks away, John McCain faces a stark choice: Will he go down in history as a principled conservative who lost an election standing on his convictions? Or..."

"... will he go down as an opportunist who lost while bringing out the darkest elements in American politics?... After 8 disastrous years of Republican rule under George W. Bush, all of the tides of history point towards a Democratic victory on November 4th. Obama’s principle [sic] obstacle to the presidency has been whether a majority of Americans were ready to accept him as Commander in Chief... McCain’s campaign believed that their only chance was to change the subject from the economy and make Obama scary and unacceptable, a man who 'pals around with terrorists.' In the face of the vast economic crisis, that strategy appears to be failing, turning off moderates who want answers to their problems, even as it may be firing up the base. More disturbingly, McCain’s strategy is bringing out the dark underbelly of American politics — a strain of hate-filled nativism and racism that always lurks just below the surface of parts of the American political psyche. Historian Robert Hofstadter called it 'the paranoid style in American politics.' This strain is showing itself in increasingly angry crowds at Palin/McCain rallies which yell 'terrorist' and 'off with his head' about Obama. Even McCain himself appears to be taken aback by the virulence of his crowds’ reaction, partially defending Obama over the boos of his own supporters. Since it was the Palin/McCain campaign that had unleashed these forces with its implications that Obama was sympathetic to terrorism, John McCain has reached the point of political schizophrenia. John McCain is now at a crossroads. At this historical moment, he has virtually no path to win the presidency. The question is whether he will lose with honor or lose with disgrace. Will his legacy be like that of his Arizona Senatorial predecessor Barry Goldwater, who ran a campaign of conservative principal in a liberal year and lost in a landslide, only to see his principals [sic!] come to power 16 years in the form of Ronald Reagan? Or will his legacy be like some combination of Richard Nixon, Robert Dole and George Wallace, one of a man whom, in his overweening ambition for victory, took the low road and tapped the dark forces of American politics to his own everlasting shame and dishonor?"

From a HuffPo column published 3 weeks before the 2008 election. I thought it was interesting to read in the context of the McCain post mortem.

Those questions at the end make me want to ask: Is Trump the dark legacy of McCain?

"More than 30 people have been honored by lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda, a gesture reserved for the country’s 'most eminent citizens,' since the practice began in 1852..."

"... after the death of Henry Clay, the former House speaker and senator from Kentucky. Mr. McCain would be the 13th former senator to be granted the honor, according to the Architect of the Capitol."

From "John McCain to Lie in State at Capitols in Washington and Arizona" (NYT).

Here's the list of 30 that begins with Henry Clay.

The death of John McCain changes the national discourse, the national mood, just as we are enduring intense political passions (which I have called a "national nervous breakdown"). I hope the change is for the better, but so many people, on both sides, are deeply committed to maintaining an atmosphere of hysteria, despair, outrage, and anxiety.

Do you remember how the death of Ronald Reagan affected the course of politics in 2004? From the eulogy (delivered in an election year by the candidate for reelection):

See, our 40th President wore his title lightly, and it fit like a white Stetson. In the end, through his belief in our country and his love for our country, he became an enduring symbol of our country. We think of his steady stride, that tilt of the head and snap of the salute, the big-screen smile, and the glint in his Irish eyes when a story came to mind.

We think of a man advancing in years with the sweetness and sincerity of a Scout saying the Pledge. We think of that grave expression that sometimes came over his face, the seriousness of a man angered by injustice and frightened by nothing. We know, as he always said, that America's best days are ahead of us, but with Ronald Reagan's passing, some very fine days are behind us, and that is worth our tears....

A white Stetson hat... these days we have red MAGA hats.

John McCain has died.

"John S. McCain, the proud naval aviator who climbed from depths of despair as a prisoner of war in Vietnam to pinnacles of power as a Republican congressman and senator from Arizona and a two-time contender for the presidency, died on Saturday at his home in Arizona. He was 81. According to a statement from his office, Mr. McCain died at 4:28 p.m. local time. He had suffered from a malignant brain tumor, called a glioblastoma, for which he had been treated periodically with radiation and chemotherapy since its discovery in 2017" (NYT).

Trump calls McCain "a man — I won’t mention his name. But a man..."

From the transcript of Trump's call-in to Rush Limbaugh's show today:

We had Obamacare repealed and replaced, and a man — I won’t mention his name. But a man at 2 o’clock in the morning went thumbs down, and he campaigned for years on repeal and replace. We had the chance. Nobody even spoke to him about it, because it was something that was unthinkable what he did, and because of that… But still, I have just about ended Obamacare. We have great health care. We have a lot of great things happening right now. New programs are coming out....

I thought it very interesting, that almost-phobia about saying the name — as if the name has mystical power, or perhaps a sense that's it's wrong to speak ill of the near-dead.

It was Rush's 30th anniversary show today, and Trump called in to congratulate him. Here, you can watch Rush react. He seems genuinely surprised to get the call:

"In the entire history of our country, Americans have never seen a president of the United States support an American adversary the way President Trump has supported President Putin."

"A single, ominous question now hangs over the White House: What could possibly cause President Trump to put the interests of Russia over those of the United States? Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous behavior is the possibility that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump."

Said Chuck Schumer.

"This is a disgraceful moment... The president’s party knows better. I know they do. I served with many of them. America needs them to speak out with clarity and conviction not just in this news cycle, but until there’s common sense governing America’s foreign policy."

Said John Kerry.

"It is tempting to describe the news conference as a pathetic rout — as an illustration of the perils of under-preparation and inexperience. But these were not the errant tweets of a novice politician. These were the deliberate choices of a president who seems determined to realize his delusions of a warm relationship with Putin’s regime without any regard for the true nature of his rule, his violent disregard for the sovereignty of his neighbors, his complicity in the slaughter of the Syrian people, his violation of international treaties, and his assault on democratic institutions throughout the world."

Said John McCain.

All quoted in The New York Times, here. Full video and transcript, here, in case you want to search there for the reason for these strong condemnations.

"Sen. John McCain is 2,200 miles from Washington and hasn’t been on Capitol Hill in five months, but he showed this week that he remains a potent force in national politics and a polarizing figure within the Republican Party."

"From his home in Sedona, Ariz., where he is receiving treatment for an aggressive and typically fatal type of brain cancer, McCain has challenged and praised the Trump administration’s actions on national security — his voice limited to news releases and Twitter. But his declaration Wednesday in opposition to Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee for CIA director, has uniquely roiled the political scene. The denunciation has prompted reactions from fellow senators and a former vice president, as well as intemperate remarks from some Republicans aligned with Trump, including a White House aide. It has revived the fierce debate over torture and its effectiveness in extracting information in the years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — from a man who speaks from experience. McCain was held for 5½ years in a North Vietnamese prison, often deprived of sleep, food and medical care, after a jet he piloted was shot down over Hanoi...."

So begins "Speaking out on torture and a Trump nominee, ailing McCain roils Washington" (WaPo).

Also at WaPo: "John McCain is the single greatest political leader of our time" (by Dana Milbank). Excerpt:

McCain is still with us, and this is no obituary. But as Trump loyalists besmirch this good man, I thought I would put in writing what I have often thought over the years: John McCain is the single greatest political leader of our time. He is, in a way, not of our time, for his creed — country before self — is unfamiliar to many who serve in office and utterly foreign to the man in charge.

Only once during the nearly quarter of a century I’ve been covering politics did I think I could work for a politician, and that politician was McCain. I first got to know him in early 1999, when there were just a few of us driving around New Hampshire with him in an SUV, before the “Straight Talk Express” rolled. Had he beaten George W. Bush (he surely would have defeated Al Gore), and had he been president on Sept. 11, 2001, I know he would have done great things with the national unity Bush ultimately squandered....

"John McCain Urges Senate To Reject Gina Haspel’s Nomination For CIA."

HuffPo reports.

In his statement, McCain said he understood “the urgency that drove the decision” to resort to torture as a method of interrogation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “But as I have argued many times, the methods we employ to keep our nation safe must be as right and just as the values we aspire to live up to and promote in the world.”

He continued: “I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defense. However, Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying. I believe the Senate should exercise its duty of advice and consent and reject this nomination.”

ADDED: Here's the key discussion of morality:

Kamala Harris: So one question I have not heard you answer is, do you believe that the previous interrogation techniques were immoral?

Haspel: Senator, I believe that CIA officers to whom you refer—

Harris: It’s a yes or no answer. Do you believe the previous interrogation techniques were immoral? I’m not asking do you believe they were legal; I’m asking do you believe they were immoral?

Haspel: Senator, I believe that CIA—

Harris: It’s a yes or no answer.

Haspel: —did extraordinary work to prevent another attack on this country given the legal tools we were asked to use.

Harris: Please answer yes or no. Do you believe in hindsight that those techniques were immoral?

Haspel: Senator, what I believe sitting here today is that I support the higher moral standard we have decided to hold ourselves to.

Harris: Can you please answer the question?

Haspel: Senator, I think I’ve answered the request, the question.

Harris: No, you have not. Do you believe the previous techniques, now armed with hindsight, do you believe they were immoral? Yes or no?

Haspel: Senator, I believe that we should hold ourselves to the moral standard outlined in the Army field manual.

Harris: Okay, so I understand that you have not answered the question, but I’m going to move on.