Senator John McCain (R-AZ) made headlines last week with his dramatic return to the Senate floor after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer.
One of his first actions while back on Capitol Hill was to cast a decisive vote in favor of starting the formal debate procedure on healthcare reform in the Senate. Ironically, he then proceeded to vote against the healthcare bill that had the best chance of passing and was again decisive in scuttling the Senate’s efforts.
While these McCain votes captured many of the headlines in the US, international observers were focused on a different aspect of McCain’s busy week. Specifically, upon his return to the Senate, McCain took the opportunity to give an impassioned plea for Democratic and Republican lawmakers to come together and collaborate on new legislation.*
One policy analyst based in North Africa spoke to The Daily Face Palm about why foreigners were so concerned. The analyst requested anonymity for fear of being targeted by a US defensive assassination strike.
“Bipartisanship in the US often results in bad domestic policy for Americans, but it always results in catastrophic foreign policy for the rest of us,” the analyst explained, citing the US approach to Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, Israel-Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Yemen, and somehow still Afghanistan, among others as evidence for his fears.
The concerns were shared by regular civilians on the ground as well.
“We know how this ends,” confided one Iraqi villager, who said he is still trying to rebuild after America’s last round of across-the-aisle deal making.
Meanwhile, a Yemeni man had managed to find a small silver lining in America’s enduring interventions in that country, but shared a broadly pessimistic outlook on the idea of more cooperation in Washington, DC.
“The [drone war] has gotten the children to enjoy going outside even when it’s cloudy or rainy, since they know it’s less likely that a hellfire missile will interrupt a soccer game in those conditions,” the man told The Daily Face Palm. “But we’ve just started getting used to the cluster munitions. Who knows what indiscriminate weapon the Democrats and Republicans will agree on sending the Saudis next?”
At the time of publication, there were already strong signs that these foreigners’ concerns were well-founded. Near the end of last week, the Senate voted 98-2 in favor of new economic sanctions on a smorgasbord of countries on the DC wish list.
*This is a satirical post. While the news about Senator McCain’s actions and the sanctions vote are all accurately described, the quotes ascribed to foreign observers are fictional.
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