Remember Paul Wellstone?  Probably, but mainly for his funeral.

Wellstone was a well liked Democratic senator from Minnesota who died in a plane crash in 2002.  In the midst of public turmoil back in Washington, what with Bush Derangement Syndrome going full blast and midterms eleven days away, his funeral ended up amounting to a political rah-rah session, a "pep rally" and a "partisan foot-stomp" for the Democratic Party instead of a memorial to a man who was supposedly loved by Democrats.  What it showed was that midterms were more important to Democrats than honoring a man who had died.  For the rest of us, it was just disgusting.

Scroll over to 2018, and note the outlines of the funeral of Senator John McCain, who died Saturday.

There will be a long Lincolnesque funeral train from Arizona to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, which an eager media will use to extend the news coverage.

Then there is the fact that President Trump will not either speak or even be at the event, which sounds like signs of a partisan rally in the works.  We all know there was bad blood between McCain and Trump, and Trump said some things he should not have said.  But Trump's Twitter response to this event has been gracious, and he frankly shouldn't figure in this funeral at all.  That's precisely why we are going to get goopy extended press coverage in a naked bid to turn the funeral into a political rally against Trump.  The press attention won't be on McCain; it will be on Trump.

It gets worse when you consider that President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush will speak at the rally – I mean funeral.  Has there ever been a public speaking event where President Obama didn't take a few shots at President Trump, often in that veiled, passive-aggressive way of his, which suggests Trump but doesn't name him?  A bingo game ought to be set up right now for the timing of just how he will do it, because he will do it.

Then there's President Bush, who said he "owed [Obama] his silence" all those years when he ravaged rule of law, insulted Bush's legacy, blamed Bush for everything, and enabled the swamp to run rampant.  Bush seems not to think he owes the same to President Trump.  He never fails to take a potshot at Trump when he's got the cameras on him, making himself less and less attractive to Republicans.  I can see him lecturing us all on "civility," which never really described the tumultuous and fiery McCain, and "reaching across the aisle," which did and is precisely why we got Trump.

Maybe I'm wrong, and everything will turn out classy.  But knowing this much, the signs look stronger that the politicization of the funeral is emerging, and if so, it'll amount to a pep rally against President Trump.

What a lousy thing, really, to do to McCain, even if McCain wanted it this way.  Most of us prefer to remember him with at least some kindness.  That's not going to happen if his funeral turns into a politicized, foot-stomping rally whose main aim is not to honor McCain, but to be another sorry opportunity to Get Trump.

Image credit: CSPAN screencap.