Candidate Donald Trump made a serious mistake when, at a campaign event in 2015, he said of the late Sen. John McCain, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” This remark was actually a reprise of comments he had made about McCain in a 1999 interview with “60 minutes” when the senator was seeking the 2000 Republican presidential nomination.

It was a foolish thing for Trump to have said and he subsequently offered a lukewarm apology to McCain, “If somebody’s a prisoner, I consider them a war hero.” By then, John McCain’s pride had kicked in and the damage had been done.

In 2016, McCain and an associate obtained a copy of the bogus Steele dossier and delivered it to the FBI.

Next, McCain delivered the deciding vote against Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, an issue he had campaigned on and the two remained enemies up until his death last year.

The late senator had even left instructions for the President to be excluded from his funeral. And, of course, during his illness and certainly upon his death, John McCain became St. John McCain. His funeral, reminiscent of the Paul Wellstone memorial service, was more a political event than a ceremony to honor and bury a beloved friend.

Last week, when McCain’s role in delivering the bogus dossier to the FBI was proven, Trump sent the following tweet:

So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) “last in his class” (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019

Spineless, sanctimonious and self-serving freshman senator Mitt Romney could not allow an opportunity to insult Trump to pass, so he sent out a tweet of his own:

“I can’t understand why the President would, once again, disparage a man as exemplary as my friend John McCain: heroic, courageous, patriotic, honorable, self-effacing, self-sacrificing, empathetic, and driven by duty to family, country, and God.”

I can’t understand why the President would, once again, disparage a man as exemplary as my friend John McCain: heroic, courageous, patriotic, honorable, self-effacing, self-sacrificing, empathetic, and driven by duty to family, country, and God.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) March 19, 2019

John McCain possessed many of those qualities, however, he was first and foremost, a human being. And, he was capable of all of the failings common to most human beings. He was capable of sarcasm, cruelty, vengefulness and pettiness. In many ways, he was not an “exemplary” man.

Mitt Romney is a bitter man. He made a real splash on New Year’s Day by penning a scathing op-ed which criticized Trump for his “moral failure.”

Accomplished as he is, Romney has never been able to attain his number one goal in life which is to win the presidency.

And it is killing him.