Tirade against Mccain spoils Trump’s Ohio visit

It was already bad enough that President Donald Trump felt compelled to coddle his personal insecurities over the weekend by regurgitating his embarrassing resentment of the late Sen. John Mccain.

Then he ruined his Ohio rally at the nation’s only military tank manufacturing plant on Wednesday by again attacking the former POW and Vietnam war hero.

It was the third time in a week that Trump abused his position as president to trash-talk a man who remains widely regarded as a real patriot and is still beloved by Senate Republican colleagues some seven months after succumbing to brain cancer.

That members of the president’s own party later refused to discuss, let alone defend, his behavior underscores how inappropriate it was.

Maybe it was being in a location that symbolizes America’s military might that reminded the president — who five times in his 1960s youth obtained draft deferments — that Mccain’s fighter-pilot pathway was his polar opposite. Mccain not only served with distinction and endured torture in captivity but then declined opportunities, as the son and grandson of admirals, for release from POW camp before those captured earlier.

Trump further defiled his Ohio visit by making the pettiest of claims, whining that he was not properly thanked by Mccain’s family for allowing the state funeral earned and befitting the true American hero.

The president was in our state to highlight hundreds of jobs being created by his support for ramped-up production of Stryker attack vehicles and Abrams tanks by General Dynamics.

It is unfortunate this rare visit to Lima, Ohio, which could have been remembered by his supporters as a bright spot in the long 2020 campaign, will instead be known for another unbelievable Trump tirade against someone who symbolizes all that this president will never be.