Topic: CNSNews.com
We can assume that CNSNews.com didn't like John McCain any more than its Media Research Center parent did. We can probably assume that's why CNS felt the need to make McCain's death all about ... Hillary Clinton.
An Aug. 27 CNS blog post by Susan Jones carries the ludicrous headline "Hillary Clinton Hopes to Toast McCain with Vodka Shots (A Russian Drink!)." And, yes, Jones is very much obsessed with the Russian vodka thing:
After sharing fond memories of the late Sen. John McCain on Sunday, former Secretary of State Hillary was asked by Chuck Todd, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," if she plans to raise a glass to her departed friend and colleague.
"Secretary Clinton, I'm going to leave it there," Todd said at the end of their telephone conversation. "I thank you. I assume you and Lindsey Graham are going to have some vodka shots, and toast the senator," Todd said.
"Well, (laughing) I don't know," Clinton replied. "I hope -- I hope that will happen at some point in the future," Mrs. Clinton said.
"I think the Irishman in John McCain would love for you to celebrate that way," Todd told Clinton -- even though vodka is a Russian drink and McCain was no friend of the Russian government.
Jones seems not to be aware that the best-selling vodka brand in the U.S., Smirnoff, is made in the U.S. despite a Russian heritage. Or that a popular craft vodka is also American-made.
Jones does concede that "McCain and Clinton had previously bonded over vodka," but then takes a shot at McCain: "As for McCain, his Irish ancestry gave him license to tell Irish jokes on the campaign trail, most notably in 2008, when he opened a town hall in Scranton, Pa., with a joke about the drunken Irish O'Reilly twins that fell sort of flat. You can google the actual joke, which hasn't improved with time."
Earlier, Jones wrote a separate "news" article starting with another dig at the deceased: "Sen. John McCain's death was topic A on the Sunday talk shows where the senator was so often a guest." (The MRC hated McCain for appearing a lot on the Sunday shows.) Shse then complained that "Clinton took a dig at conservatives as she praised McCain's bipartisanship," then grumbed that Todd ended his interview with Clinton "with a reference to alcohol" -- the talk about toasting McCain with a vodka that Jones turned into that weird blog post reference above.
Jones also complained -- in another echo of her MRC employer -- that "In July 2017, when he returned to the Senate after having surgery for the cancer that eventually would kill him, McCain made a plea for bipartisanship by taking aim at (conservative) talk-show hosts." Jones didn't rebut McCain's claim that these "bombastic loudmouths" are bad for the country because "our incapacity is their lievelihood."
