Like all of you reading this, I felt deep emotion at the news of John McCain's passing. While an unreliably Republican senator, one of the very worst, actually, we are always required to qualify his rotten record with the fact that he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, as if one career insulates the other from criticism.

Right now the inert corpse of Senator McCain is being used like an ice pick wielded by an insane serial killer to stab at President Trump. Liberals' love of Senator McCain, and now, for the first time, the American flag, is never greater when they can use both to attack the president.

Perhaps John McCain's biggest legacy, though, is the avalanche of articles about John McCain. It feels as though we're living through the death of Mao in China, with non-stop, wall-to-wall coverage. Is the flag up? Is the flag down? When did it go up? When did it go down? What does Meghan McCain think? What does Cindy think? What is Melania wearing, and what does it secretly say about John McCain? What did President Trump say about John McCain? What didn't President Trump say about John McCain? What does President Trump's body language say about John McCain? What does a handwriting analyst have to say about President Trump's signature on the proclamation about John McCain?

Meanwhile, we are treated to a ton of drivel:

1. How he was the courageous deciding vote to defeat the partial repeal of Obamacare, in articles with titles like "I'll never forget watching John McCain vote down Obamacare repeal."

2. How he stabbed Sarah Palin in the back after he lost the election to Obama.

3. McCain's great man-love for John Kerry.

4. McCain's brave stand against waterboarding terrorists

5. People like Obama praising McCain for having "classic integrity" (What kind of integrity did Obama have? The virtual kind?)

6. Articles that call McCain the "last lion" of the Senate. The last senator to be called a "great lion" was the renowned U-boat captain from Massachusetts, Edward Kennedy.

7. The use of the word "maverick" to refer not to an old James Garner TV show, but to John McCain voting with the Democrats.

8. Any articles with photos or quotes from Cindy and/or Meghan McCain. Sorry, your 15 minutes are over. Royalty went out with the Bushes and the Clintons!

9. Articles that cite McCain's "global stature" or even call him a "force of nature" (perhaps like a hurricane or a large forest fire).

10. Articles that claim that President Trump is insufficiently supplicant for sending the McCain family his sympathies.

Like smoke from forest fires, the stories about John McCain stories will burn with great intensity and effluvium for a time. The media use his memory to the last drop and then find a new tool with which to attack the president.

Ed Straker is the senior editor of the Newsmachete Twitter Feed.