I hit peak McCain on reading this: John McCain’s Funeral Was the Biggest Resistance Meeting Yet.

Let’s call the roll of that gathering, shall we? From the article, in order: Meaghan McCain, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney–and at this point, let’s quote a paragraph:

For a moment, at least, they still lived in the America where Obama and Bush and Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney could all sit in the same pew, in the same church, and sing the same words to the patriotic hymns that made them all teary-eyed at the same time.

To continue the roll call: John Boehner, Elizabeth Warren, David Petraeus, Leon Panetta, Al Gore, Madeleine Albright, Paul Ryan, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner–I understand no one slapped either of them, or threw a drink in either one’s face, but I suppose that’s to much to expect from a member of The Resistance–John Bolton, John Kelly–are you getting that warm, runny feeling yet?–and Jeff Flake.

Does that sound like The Resistance to you? It sounds to me like the people who got us into this mess in the first place. Which of those people has actually gotten in Trump’s way? Elizabeth Warren. The Obamas are taking a well-earned vacation, so they get a pass from me. The Clintons are out pimping their books. Leon Panetta and Al Gore are doing something, I suppose, even if it’s just shutting up because they don’t have anything useful to contribute. Madeleine Albright wrote a book that’s on topic but not going to motivate people to action, judging by the people I know who read it and recommend it, but she means well, bless her heart. And that’s the Democrats in the room!

And you know who else was at that memorial and gave a very moving speech? America’s Funniest War Criminal, Henry Kissinger! I shit you not: The very man who directed years of the criminal Vietnam War which John McCain got injured fighting. The only place we should see Kissinger hanging around is Nuremberg. But there he was, Resisting.

It’s possible to feel admiration for the personal virtues of a man like John McCain, who spent five years in a hellish prison and never finked on his comrades, and still despise the acts that put him in that prison in the first place. I realize that systematic mass murder of civilians is only a war crime these days if you don’t do it with a Very Expensive Weapon provided by one of the Major Powers, and that we’re supposed to pretend that strategic bombing isn’t terrorism. I myself figure anyone on any side of any fight who commits mass murder of civilians is a mass murderer. It’s awful hard to bomb a village in self-defense, but that doesn’t stop armies from trying, right?

The difference between McCain and Kissinger, then, is that one man had admirable personal virtues and the other did not. Kissinger’s virtues were turned exclusively to Evil purposes. It was his and Nixon’s policy to violently overthrow democratically elected governments they didn’t like. One can’t admire intelligence turned to that purpose.

So on reading that article, then hearing about Kissinger’s appearance, I realized there was a better word for that crowd: The Assistance.

The Assistance is the political creatures who thrived in a corrupt, self-serving political environment. They are the Ancien Règime of America, on an old road rapidly changing. And you know what? They don’t see any point in lending a hand, because it’s you who are in their way, as they ping little spitballs of tut-tuts at a man who exemplifies the system they are frantically trying to put back together. They are doing the absolute least they can do in defense of your interests–condemning in the strongest terms!–as they try to protect their own.

They are working to preserve the corruption that pays for their foundations and stuffs speaking fees strung with beads of zeroes on the end up their well-deserving buttholes. They get that money from the rich because it is the rich who they serve. When the rich yank the string on those speaking fees, you bet those political asses respond.

So don’t expect much from The Assistance. As always, we will have to save ourselves. And if you have to run one of The Assistance over in the process? It’s not like they weren’t warned: