John McCain's passing has been revealing in all sorts of ways.

Perhaps the most entertaining of those ways is the way McCain's passing exposes the hypocrisy of so many prominent Democrats. Chuck Schumer, for example, who back in the 2008 campaign jeered at McCain as an out-of-touch plutocrat who "wears $500 shoes, has six houses, and comes from one of the richest families in his state." Last week Schumer proposed renaming one of the Senate's office buildings in McCain's honor to commemorate  "his sacrifice, his patriotism and his fidelity to do the right thing."

There is a good collection of these hypocrisies at Laura Ingraham's Lifezette website.

Well, well, politics ain't beanbag; and as Dr Johnson said, quote from him: "In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath." These small hypocrisies aside, what can we say about John McCain?

So far as the man himself is concerned, we're dealing with two figures: McCain the war hero, and McCain the professional politician.

I'll give the guy benefit of the doubt where his status as a war hero is concerned, only pausing briefly to acknowledge that there is doubt.

And while we should celebrate our war heroes as a group, being a war hero is no guarantee of individual moral worth. Alcibiades was a war hero; Coriolanus was a war hero. When I mentioned those two instances to Peter Brimelow in conversation Peter parried with: "Hitler was a war hero." [VDARE.com note: This is an anti-McCain, not pro-Hitler point.] Was he? It's been disputed; but yes, he did get the Iron Cross.

As a professional politician, though, McCain was a disaster.

I come at this with prejudice, in the exact dictionary sense. As a fan of strict term limits, I dislike professional politicians on principle. I do allow a very small number of exceptions to that principle, notably the late great Calvin Coolidge who once, when asked if he had any hobbies, replied: "Yes, running for office."

Coolidge was a very special case, though. As H.L. Mencken noted in his obituary of the 30th President, quote: "There were no thrills while he reigned, but neither were there any headaches. He had no ideas, and he was not a nuisance."

John McCain the politician did have ideas and he was a nuisance. In fact he was a menace, to the peace of the world and the integrity of the Republic.

McCain's ideas were perfectly captured by Steve Sailer's phrase "invade the world, invite the world." That was McCain's philosophy precisely. He was the proponent of perpetual war and open borders.

To call him a "maverick" is preposterous. Within the parameters of his philosophy as just stated, he was the willing tool of every special interest that knocked on his door: agricultural bosses looking for cheap labor, ethnic lobbies looking for set-asides, and that "military-industrial complex" Dwight Eisenhower memorably warned us against — manufacturers looking for big government contracts.

There have been mavericks in Congress, even in the Senate. Tom Tancredo was a maverick, Steve King still is one. Dave Brat has some good maverick-ish tendencies. Jim Webb was a maverick in some ways — more of one than McCain, anyway. And then of course there was (drum roll please [drum roll]) Jeff Sessions.

John McCain was not a maverick. He was an reliable shill for the establishment. When, in the 2008 campaign, the establishment told him he'd better not try to make political capital out of Barack Obama's long and close association with a black nationalist preacher, McCain complied obediently.

I'll leave the truth about John McCain's military service to the historians. Concerning John McCain the politician: We are well rid of him.