Nothing rehabilitates a politician’s tarnished image quite like death. It happened to Nixon. It happened to Reagan. It will probably happen to Bush. And right now, it’s happening to John McCain.

McCain is still alive, but a week ago he was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer, requiring surgery to have a tumor removed. The news prompted an outpouring of grief and well-wishing from Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and conservatives alike, as well as a deluge of hagiographical pieces valorizing McCain as an American hero and all-around man of honor.

“His 2008 campaign against Barack Obama now looks like the very model of civility in the wake of Trump,” one Guardian columnist recently wrote.