Strange times when the one without the brain tumor appears as the one sick in the head.
A self-described “rogue journalist” comes closer to realizing her wish: John McCain has a malignant brain tumor.
Caitlin Johnstone, in a Monday article entitled “Please Just F—ing Die Already,” called for the death of the Arizona senator in the wake of his surgery to remove a blood clot from behind his left eye. She cited his support for various military actions as the rationale for her harsh hope.
“So yeah, if John McCain could go ahead and die sooner rather than later,” Johnstone wrote, “that would be awesome.”
Just days after posting her supersized hatred at Medium.com the “reader supported” scribe’s dream seems nearer to reality. A convalescing McCain revealed the diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor on Wednesday.
Former colleague Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts died not long after receiving a similar diagnosis, while another former colleague, Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter, survived for sixteen years after the removal of a brain tumor in 1996 before succumbing to complications from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The five-year survival rate for glioblastoma, McCain’s specific diagnosis, registers at just four percent for men between 55 and 64, according to the American Cancer Society. The former prisoner of war turns 81 next month.
Johnstone’s very active Twitter account went dormant in the hours after McCain broke the news. But after she doubled down on her article’s ghoulish point on social media following the initial uproar, don’t expect any get-well-soons or mea maxima culpas from the opinionated Aussie. She left herself little wiggle room or space to walk back the wild talk.
“If you’re waiting for the part where I say I’m just kidding and would never wish death on anybody, please allow me to make myself clear: I sincerely, genuinely hope that Arizona Senator John McCain’s heart stops beating, and that he is subsequently declared dead by qualified medical professionals very soon,” Johnstone wrote Monday. “I don’t wish him a painful death, I don’t wish him a slow death, I don’t wish him an unnatural or violent death; I only wish that he becomes incapable of facilitating the merciless slaughter of any more human beings.”