Meghan McCain on Ukraine: My Father Was John McCain

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has incited some of our worst minds to become geopolitical content creators. Sean Penn is on the ground in Kyiv filming a documentary, that woman from the Beverly Hills 90210 reboot is reading slam poetry about being Vladimir Putin’s mom, and Meghan McCain has now taken to Instagram to offer some wisdom on the situation from a man she greatly revered. Can you guess who it is? It’s John McCain.

The former View co-host posted two images to Instagram — one of a Ukranian flag with “Russian Warship, Go fuck yourself” written on it and one a political cartoon of Hitler lovingly cradling Putin’s face. She accompanied the diptych with an essay-length Instagram caption. “Everything my Dad ever said to me my entire life about Putin and Russia has come true,” McCain wrote. Not a great lede, but let’s hear her out.

“I watched him give thousands of speeches where he railed against the horrors of Putin and said his famous line that he looked into his eyes and saw ‘KGB,’” McCain continued, referring to John McCain’s response to George W. Bush’s assertion that he looked Putin in the eye and saw his “soul.” A memorable zinger to be sure, but to me a famous line is something like, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Now there’s a line that everyone knows.

The Daily Mail columnist then devotes another paragraph to her father’s legacy as an advocate for the Ukrainian people (Did you know there’s a street in Kyiv named after him?). She encourages us to look up his presence at 2014 protests on YouTube. “Want to know what western leadership looks like for Ukraine? Watch what he did when he was alive!”

McCain wraps up the “My Father!!!!” section of her caption by saying that she is furious her father is dead, because if he were alive he would “once again show Ukrainians we are with you.” She goes on to get to her actual point, which is, “This weak sanctions are NOT GOOD ENOUGH BIDEN. And there will be blood on your hands just like there was in Afghanistan.” I am not an expert on any of this, but if I had Biden’s ear I would probably tell him to not take geopolitical advice from a blogger who is most famous for being a daughter. But if he still wants to hear both sides, I would point him to Meghan’s latest Daily Mail column, where she fleshes out these ideas more fully. It is titled “MEGHAN MCCAIN: My father John McCain warned us all about the threat posed by Vladimir Putin, if we had listened then maybe Russia would not be on the march today.” We may not have listened to John McCain, but luckily we can now listen to his daughter, every day, across all platforms, forever.