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It’s simple. McCain tried to torpedo Trump. If you try to torpedo a destroyer and you fail, you better be prepared for some depth charges.

McCain crossed a line with his handling of the Dossier. He tried to do Trump personal harm.

I served under McCain for a few months in a training squadron and was a plane captain trainee at least once or twice to him, but I base my opinion on his post-military life.

It isn’t for me to say what happened between him and his first wife, but it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of him. I have always tried to be lenient in my personal judgement of people’s behavior when I know they have been through difficult times, but his conduct as a politician was nauseating to any conservative.

And almost as a way of shoving it in our faces, many of us ended up voting for him because the alternative of a candidate, so hostile to American values, was no alternative at all. We held our nose and pulled the lever.

And many of us voted for his running mate more than we voted for him. To those of us who observed that sentiment when we did our duty at the polls, John McCain’s disgustingly ungentlemanly and disrespectful treatment of her in the years after their loss told us all we needed to know about him.

I stuck up for McCain for a long time. I was a military brat, out at overseas Pacific bases for nearly the whole Vietnam war, and I hero worshipped my father and men like him, and that included men like Admiral Stockdale, CDR Denton, and yes...LCDR John McCain.

Me and my friends (other brats) wore metal wristbands with the names of POWs on them, and I had a Denton one. They would turn green and eventually crumble.

I knew who he was when I went to his training squadron, don’t know how many other young guys like me did when they showed up there.

And I stood up for him at one point with regard to the Keating Five scandal, saying without even knowing the details, that he was a token Republican, just there to make the prosecution bipartisan.

On Free Republic, I had someone take the time to have reasonable (off the forum) discourse with me because he thought I was not allowing myself to see McCain for what he was due to his military service, my respect for those who have served, and my feelings towards the Navy after watching my Dad his whole life then seeing it myself.

In other words, he said I was defending McCain out of loyalty. A laudable trait, but, in my case misguided. He was right. I owe that person a debt, but I cannot recall who it was. But he got me past that, and a clear-eyed viewing of McCain’s conduct as an elected official was a difficult thing for me to bear. Nobody likes to face the fact that they pulled the wool over their own eyes.

I would have rather gone on viewing McCain in the manner many viewed Benedict Arnold before he was wounded at Saratoga.