Zachary Leeman is a US-based journalist and author of the novel Nigh .

Mitt Romney is the latest token Republican being hoisted up on the shoulders of the mainstream media thanks to his “courageous” decision to defy Donald Trump by voting with Democrats to impeach the president.

You would think the Utah senator single-handedly defeated Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and then rescued a few kittens out of trees on his way home the way the media is writing about him.

The New Yorker declared that the former presidential candidate “seized” a chance to “rewrite his own place in history” with his impeachment vote.

An opinion piece in the Washington Post deemed the decision “courageous,” and Twitter was full of love for the man once eviscerated by liberal commentators for simply saying “binders full of women.”

This speech by Mitt Romney is the speech *every* Republican would be giving today if the president on trial was a Democrat.Glad that at least one GOP Senator is willing to say it. #MittRomney#ImpeachmentDaypic.twitter.com/ZQQ2sh5zLn — Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) February 5, 2020

Worth the two minutes.Colbert is a gem. pic.twitter.com/To69UTmYxU — The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) February 6, 2020

The lionization of Romney is nothing new. The mainstream media always keeps a few token Republicans around, and they usually have one they deem worthy of their praises, so long as that person happens to fit with the current agenda, and the current agenda is opposing Trump, so Romney is temporarily safe from the usual scorn his party affiliation and faith receive.

Others have also found themselves walking down that path of praise, past mockery cast aside so they can be deemed heroes for daring to break from Republican ranks and oppose the president.

John McCain

Romney has been crowned the new McCain.

“Like McCain before him, Romney rebukes Trump,” Roll Call wrote after Romney’s impeachment vote.

Remember how terrified we were of John McCain & Mitt Romney as candidates. We had no idea how much worse it could get. Or that they would be literally the only two GOP senators willing to stand up to a constitution-abusing despot. Country over party. Bless you both. — Bryan Behar (@bryanbehar) February 5, 2020

Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin applauded Romney’s impeachment vote speech by calling it “McCain-esque.”

In our bleak, angry and cynical time, we should all find inspiration in a singular act of integrity. Romney deserves the highest compliment I can pay a politician: He was McCain-esque. https://t.co/2baXnmpLlw — Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) February 5, 2020

McCain wasn’t always liked though. When he ran against Barack Obama in 2008, the late Arizona senator was painted as an over-the-hill Republican grouch with racist policies. The Pew Research Center found in the weeks leading up to the election, negative stories about McCain were three to one. Obama, meanwhile, had the opposite problem. Only about a third of stories written about him were negative.

Google McCain’s name today and you’d be hard-pressed to find a bad word about him. Why is that? Could it be his time spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam? No, it’s because he was one of Trump’s most consistent Republican critics.

Also on rt.com Sea of salty memes from Troll-in-Chief Trump & his Twitter army adds insult to #Resistance post-impeachment injury

The New York Times, the same paper that ran an editorial in 2008 accusing McCain of possibly running racist ads, published piece after piece defendingMcCain from Trump attacks. Quite a flip.

Like Romney, McCain was a defeated political opponent later praised as an elder statesman and protector of all things good simply because he didn’t like Trump.

Anthony Scaramucci

He may have only served as the director of communications in the White House for eleven days, but that hasn’t stopped Scaramucci from turning himself into a self-appointed expert on the president.

Once one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, Scaramucci did a complete 180 degree turn in recent months and now appears to oppose everything he once promoted. What’s ironic about him now appearing on CNN and MSNBC or writing op-eds for Huffington Post and Washington Post about how he saw the wrong in his views is the same left-wing media he now frequents is the reason he was out of a job in the first place.

Also on rt.com Trump slams Romney & Pelosi for faith-based hypocrisy during impeachment

Scaramucci was fired after an interview with the New Yorker where he said some pretty vulgar things about White House officials, including Steve Bannon. Scaramucci thought the comments were off the record and was just as shocked as everyone else when he saw them in print.

George W. Bush

Before the possibility of Trump becoming president was ever a reality, George W. Bush was sold by the mainstream media as the worst Republicans had to offer. He was blasted as racist, incompetent, cowardly, on and on it went. The hysteria over Bush was so bad conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer coined the term “Bush Derangement Syndrome” — sound familiar? — to describe the extremeness that came with critiques of the man.

Leftists like Michael Moore blasted Bush and higher-ups in his administration as war criminals for starting the war in Iraq. Former Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote an entire book about prosecuting Bush for murder, and he’s the same guy who wrote ‘Helter Skelter’, the book about cult leader Charles Manson!

A film was even released fantasizing about Bush’s assassination, ‘Death of a President’, and it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. And before there was ever a push for Nancy Pelosi to impeach Trump, she was being pushed to impeach Bush. It was hard to imagine at the time that any politician could ever inspire the vitriolic hate that Bush did.

Also on rt.com Don’t be confused by Romney jumping ship – impeachment is about sticking to party lines

Then Trump came into the picture and knocked W.’s brother Jeb out of the running for president. George W. Bush in turn criticized Trump. He even defended the media as “essential to democracy” while Trump popularized terms like “fake news” in his war with the press.

Bush went from a threat to democracy to an “unlikely savior,” as the New York Times so subtly put it. He has been so redeemed in some eyes that more loyal leftists have become a tad uncomfortable with the man ranking on ‘most admired’ lists and hanging with celebs like Ellen DeGeneres. They have taken to trying to remind people of the good old days where people fantasized about everything from the man in prison to in the grave on a daily basis.

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