McCain and Orban

“If McCain had only made some »critical remarks,« the Hungarian government might not have summoned our envoy to lodge a complaint about what he said. As it happens, McCain seems to have called Orban a »neofascist dictator,« and unsurprisingly Orban was not pleased by this distorted and misleading characterization. Orban is an elected nationalist leader with some authoritarian tendencies, and the U.S. and other European governments have legitimate concerns about illiberal moves that Orban and his ruling party have used to consolidate their power in recent years. However, that makes him neither »neofascist« nor a dictator. That’s a ridiculous way to describe the head of government of a democratic allied country.

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McCain even has a fair point that the person nominated to be ambassador to Hungary is a woefully unqualified bundler, but at the moment it is McCain who has done more to damage relations with Hungary than anything the unqualified nominee could have done while in Budapest.”