Vicious Sen. John McCain says his cancer is 'vicious'

Henry Rodgers
The Daily Caller
Sun, 10 Sep 2017 01:25 UTC

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain said he has a vicious form of cancer in his first national interview since receiving his diagnosis on a CNN appearance Sunday.

Doctors diagnosed McCain with brain cancer in July. He was hospitalized in late July for surgery to remove a blood clot above his left eye. Subsequent tests revealed a primary brain tumor associated with the blood clot.

"I'm fine," McCain told CNN's Jake Tapper. "The prognosis is pretty good. Look, this is a very vicious form of cancer that I'm facing, but all the results so far are excellent."

The Arizona Republican acknowledged the severity of the illness but said it was the latest test in a lifetime of tough fights.

"I'm facing a challenge, but I've faced other challenges," McCain said. "And I'm very confident about getting through this one as well."

McCain returned to the Senate two days after being diagnosed with cancer and after surgery to vote "no" on a Obamacare "skinny repeal" bill in late July, even delivering a dramatic speech in front of all of the Senate calling for a bipartisanship message on health care reform.

Comment: See also: Behind a guise of objective journalism, CNN's Deep State sycophant Jake Tapper is taking America to war

John McCain's Hostage

Tapper launched his career as a national reporter at Salon.com, a progressive-branded online outlet born at the dawn of the online news era. David Talbot, the founder and former editor-in-chief of Salon, remembered Tapper as a driven careerist.

"The main thing I remember about Jake was his driving ambition," Talbot added. "He seemed to be headed for the TV spotlight all along. So I don't find it surprising that he's become a fixture of centrist, mainstream news."

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Talbot recalled Tapper transforming into what he called "a John McCain groupie." Tapper gushed over the Arizona senator when the former CNN host Howard Kurtz asked him in February, 2000, "When you're on the [campaign] bus, do you make a conscious effort not to fall under the magical McCain spell?"

"Oh, you can't. You become like Patty Hearst when the SLA took her," Tapper joked in reply [10]. "In fact, I think McCain was referring to me as Tanya at one point" (the name Hearst took after being kidnapped by and then joining the SLA).

The same month, Tapper described [11] McCain as "basically a cool dude."

In April, Tapper followed McCain to Vietnam, where the senator had returned to visit the land where he was held as a POW after being captured on his way to bomb a civilian lightbulb factory. Tapper returned with a fawning portrait [12] of McCain spreading the gospel of free trade and "putting aside whatever personal animus he had for the sake of bringing the country into the 20th century."

Yet two months earlier, McCain had said [13] of the North Vietnamese who held him captive, "I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live."

After the 9/11 attacks, McCain emerged as one of the most fervent supporters of invading Iraq, belting [14] out, "Next up: Baghdad!" while touring an aircraft carrier on the Arabian Sea in early 2002. The senator's support for the war was part of his zeal for further regime change operations in countries from Iran to North Korea.

Salon, for its part, was one of the key voices of opposition to the war on Iraq, condemning it and George W. Bush's unilateralist foreign policy with a constant stream of op-eds and critical reporting. Tapper stood apart from his more impassioned colleagues, reporting dryly on the run-up to invasion and the occupation that followed. Talbot said Tapper "didn't exhibit a hawkish bias, as far as I can remember," but did not distinguish himself as much of a critic of the war either.

"Jake was never out to change the world as many of us at Salon were," Talbot recalled, "but simply to cover it, and to make a successful career from doing so."

But Talbot wondered if Tapper's admiration for McCain has led him to adopt the senator's fanatical militarism. As the host of CNN's "The Lead," Tapper has shed all pretense of journalistic objectivity to pump up regime change and sanctions across the globe.