Military Leaders From The United States

"While the John McCain factor may not have been decisive in the Arizona vote, for some it likely resonated. And it wasn't only personal history and view of service that divided Trump from McCain. It was also their demeanor in presidential campaigning and ultimate defeat."

"The reality is that while McCain's ghost may be smiling over the karma of Trump's loss of Arizona, the McCain-Trump feud was only one factor. While the senator was beloved by many in Arizona, not least because of his heroism in Vietnam (Trump avoided service claiming bone spurs), many residents new to the state have little knowledge of him. About half of the state's total population was added between the time McCain was first elected to the Senate in 1986 until his death, based on US Census Bureau data from 1980 and 2019. In addition, while many people came to the state every year, a significant number left -- even if the total kept growing. Arizona added 2.2 million residents from 2010 to 2018, while seeing 1.7 million move to other states. In other words, it's entirely possible that this churn prevented the kind of civic attachment that would have left a large cohort of Arizonans holding a grudge against Trump over his treatment of McCain."

"We really have to fault the mass media of the United States, not just for the last few days, but the last decades, pretending that somehow, by implication, almost that John McCain was doing the people of North Vietnam a favor as he flew over them and dropped bombs. You would think, in the hagiography that we’ve been getting about his role in a squadron flying over North Vietnam, that he was dropping, you know, flowers or marshmallows or something. He was shot down during his 23rd mission dropping bombs on massive numbers of human beings, in a totally illegal and immoral war."

"In 2004, more evangelicals voted than all blacks plus union members. Only a massive turnout narrowly gave Bush Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia, among others. Here Huckabee runs strongest. McCain is 72. Huckabee is 52. McCain is leaden on television. The former Arkansas governor dazzles. McCain is weak on values issues without which Republicans once routinely lost, and will this year lose again: culture, middle-class angst, Main Street v. Wall Street. Huckabee plays them like Louis Armstrong did a trumpet. Every other prospective veep — Charlie Crist, Mark Sanford, Phil Gramm; God forbid, Steve Forbes — is dull on the stump, wooden on TV and economically conservative: a McCain clone. Vowing to "unify the party," he needs the man who has done far more with far less than any candidate. Can McCain afford to pick Huckabee? He can’t afford not to. Given Bush’s albatross, McCain may not win even with Huckabee. Almost certainly, he can’t win without him."

"McCain would give illegal aliens citizenship. He mocks a U.S. president’s oath to protect border security, calling the vast majority of Americans who oppose amnesty "vigilantes" and "bigots." Last week, McCain, often booed, termed himself "a fellow conservative" at D.C.’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference. He is surely a foreign-policy hawk, even arguably an economic conservative. To win, though, McCain needs the GOP’s much larger social/cultural constituency. How does he woo those who disbelieve, even loathe, him? Mistrusting McCain’s words, many Republicans will respond only to acts: i.e. the vice presidency. Enter Mike Huckabee, coming from nowhere to take eight primaries and caucuses and embody the Middle America that frets about the mortgage, college education, a society that perverts right v. wrong."

""This is the way the world ends," wrote T.S. Eliot, "not with a bang, but a whimper." This is the way the Republican presidential contest ends: not with a bang, but a white flag. Mitt Romney’s withdrawal effectively ensures John McCain’s triumph. Most become a nominee by rousing their party’s base. McCain has spent a decade reviling it. Eight years ago, McCain called evangelical Protestant leaders “agents of intolerance”: the single largest bloc of the Republican coalition. Earlier, he passed legislation limiting outside free speech campaign finance, swelling left-wing power to control the agenda. The GOP’s media enemy is its nominee-to-be’s dear friend. McCain has bashed Bush tax cuts, knifed conservative judges, and scored a Constitutional amendment ban on same-sex marriage: the very issue electing W. in 2004. Worse, he and Ted Kennedy championed "comprehensive immigration" reform of the 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants who knowingly ignore our law."

"I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues. He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that....He had very few friends in the Senate. He has a lot of support around the country, but I don't think he has a lot of support from people who know him well."

"One of the most fascinating parts of their story is the Game Change authors’ insistence that John McCain – he of the clenched fists and frequent outbursts, the infamous temper – never publicly repudiated Sarah Palin. McCain’s advisors, staff and friends, yes. They complained long and hard and nastily about her in ensuing years. But never the senator, Heilemann and Halperin write. And now, as the nation says farewell to one of the most fascinating politicians in history, a question remains: Will all of John McCain’s railing against Donald Trump ever make up for the fact that it might have been the senator’s own desperation to win in 2008 that led the nation to this point? Only time will tell."

"But I can’t help but wonder if the long view will be quite so kind to McCain. Will John McCain go down in history as the refreshing voice of reason, the antidote to Trump? He might. Or history might take a different view. Will McCain instead be remembered as the man who opened the door in 2008 to Sarah Palin, simultaneously setting the table for the Tea Party and ultimately making a spot for Trump himself? It all depends on your perspective."

"McCain will not likely go down in history as Arizona’s favorite son. That title may ultimately belong to the late Carl Hayden, who used his own role in the Senate to secure water rights for the state; perhaps to another late senator, Barry Goldwater, a true political iconoclast; or maybe to a favorite daughter, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Favorite? No, although he never won an election in the state with less than an extra-wide margin. But McCain will certainly be remembered by many of us as Arizona’s most fascinating son."

"And then there was his complicated relationship with our state. John McCain lived in many places after Vietnam, but for the last 36 years he called Arizona home, and represented the state in Congress — from 1982 to 1986 as a representative, and then from ‘86 to his death as a member of the United States Senate. McCain embraced Arizona, adopting the pretty landscape of central Phoenix and Cornville, posting photos of red-rock hikes, but doing very little during his tenure to support the state. In fact, his stand against “pork-barrel politics” at a time when his colleagues in Congress were busy lining their own states’ pockets with infrastructure cost Arizona dearly while increasing McCain’s popularity as a refreshingly honest leader who turned down handouts. In a lot of ways, it didn’t matter what state he lived in. John McCain was America’s senator, not Arizona’s, a transplant (or a carpetbagger — again, it depends on your perspective) who adopted the state as his own."

"The end of a lengthy political career is almost invariably sad, whether the final act is defeat, infirmity, or death. Ted Kennedy and John McCain both fought valiantly in public to remain active senators despite the dire diagnosis of aggressive brain cancer. Former segregationist Strom Thurmond treated the Senate as a high-class rest home as he—barely able to recognize his surroundings—nominally served the people of South Carolina until he died in office at age 100."

"What polling mavens too often forget is that an election is not a computer simulation or a contest decided by the best use of regression analyses in analyzing published data. As a one-time event, all that is required is for a winning candidate to get lucky, very lucky, on Election Day. And a passionate embrace from Lady Luck is probably now the only way that John McCain will ever find himself behind the desk in the Oval Office."

"The last time the self-described Arizona "maverick" tried to shake up the election, he melodramatically suspended his campaign to return to Washington to do virtually nothing to ease the financial crisis. This may, in hindsight, be remembered as the 48 hours in which McCain lost the White House, since the whole thing (down to the brinksmanship over participating in the first debate) struck many voters as a political stunt. McCain's prior desperation gambit -- the selection of a "you betcha" Alaska governor as his running mate -- also does not look like the stuff of lasting political genius. But McCain still has a few gambits that he might try, especially if the alternative were a stinging defeat. Some Republicans wonder if the 72-year-old McCain should make an "I will serve only one term" pledge, so that as president he would be free of all political pressure (yeah, sure) in his effort to reform Washington and confront the deadly earmark crisis."

"With Barack Obama holding a consistent 6-to-11 percentage-point lead in all recent national polls -- the stuff of an electoral vote landslide -- the 2008 campaign seems poised to enter its Harry Truman phase. That is the moment when John McCain, like virtually every losing candidate for more than half a century, invokes the ghost of "Give ’em hell, Harry" and the fading memories of a miracle 1948 electoral upset. About the only worse omen for McCain is when Republican talking points start to include the banalities of desperation like, "The only poll that matters is the one on Election Day." Republicans are already starting to gird themselves for a Nov. 4 debacle. A front-page story in Sunday's New York Times featured GOP leaders lamenting the disarray in the McCain campaign. More ominous for McCain are the results of a secret-ballot survey by National Journal magazine of roughly 100 prominent Republican campaign consultants. Freed from the demands of on-the-record spin, 80 percent of these operatives admitted that it was highly likely that Obama would win the White House. The other 20 percent -- the cockeyed optimists of the GOP camp -- predicted that the election could go either way."

"In the end, McCain’s campaign couldn’t create or sustain a consistent message, which he desperately needed to connect with voters. The campaign reflected McCain’s current public personality — restless, erratic and temperamental. This notion, coupled with the choices he made to mollify the GOP base, alienated the type of voter that he needed to attract in order to win the election, and sealed his fate as the underdog going into Election Day. In the last few months, McCain talked a lot about the importance of character, but it was his own character that came into question by my relative and other moderate voters — his former defenders turned estranged opponents."

"The irony is that McCain had the best shot of any Republican candidate to win the election, despite his unpopularity with the party base. Given his record, he was better-positioned than any other Republican to overcome his association with the Bush administration. Simply put, however, he never did this. There is much to admire in McCain. Deep down, he is an honorable, principled man who has served his country for the majority of his life. His maverick label has been tarnished, fairly or not, but he has reached across the aisle on big issues on multiple occasions. True, he did and said things during this campaign that go against the convictions that many people believe he holds true. But it was an exhausting campaign, and things are always said that are regretted later by both sides. He was gracious in his concession speech — probably the best speech he’s given in the entire campaign — and he deserves our respect."

"For moderate voters like my relative, they tried to ignore, subconsciously or not, the criticism being heaped on McCain for choosing Palin and his increasing negativity in his attack ads and rhetoric. But as the weeks wore on and Nov. 4 drew nearer, moderate voters who liked McCain saw fewer and fewer positive attributes. My relative sincerely wanted to support McCain, for while he didn’t dislike Obama, he just couldn’t vote for him based on a gut feeling — a common sentiment found among moderate voters nationwide. He never mentioned anything about Obama’s inexperience or race; just that he just couldn’t see him as our country’s commander in chief. In the end, my relative’s mind won out over his heart. The weekend before Nov. 4, he made up his mind and decided to vote for Obama. He cited two main reasons: Firstly, the John McCain that my relative knew in 2000 was no longer the man he saw in 2008, and secondly, he simply got scared by the possibility of Sarah Palin in the White House. This viewpoint was shared by moderate voters all over the United States and doomed McCain’s chance at the presidency."

"My relative calls himself an independent and is educated but solidly middle class. He has a great deal of respect for McCain due to the senator’s service to his country and his maverick reputation. In short, my relative epitomizes the kind of voter that McCain appealed to and counted on for support. But the McCain that my relative and many other moderate voters knew in 2000, when he ran for president and garnered a great deal of support from both sides of the aisle, was not the same man in 2008. In his campaign against Obama, he used the same negative tactics used against him in 2000 that he so vehemently denounced at the time; his campaign seemed unpredictable and unsteady, impatient and excitable; and his political stunts, such as suspending his campaign to go to Washington, D.C. ostensibly to provide leadership in the midst of the economic crisis, were not well-received."

"Although the election has only just ended, it is clear why Sen. John McCain lost. It is not because millions of people viewed now-President-Elect Barack Obama as a beacon of hope in a harsh world, or because they thought he transcended ideological, racial and other traditional boundaries, or because countless voters believed that he could truly change the face of American politics. These are all reasons, but not the reason. And the reason why McCain lost is because he lost the moderate vote when he had every chance to win it. The GOP base has never been enamored with McCain, and while social and religious conservatives publicly complain about the Arizona senator, the base still votes Republican. This was never in doubt. On the opposite end of the political spectrum, most Democrats were going to vote for Obama, even those dejected after he defeated Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) in the Democratic primaries. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may have energized her party’s base as McCain’s pick for vice president, but the idea that she effectively drew Hillary supporters away from the Obama camp into McCain’s is ludicrous. The voting bloc left standing, therefore, was the moderate vote."

"McCain has gone … too far."

"Mr. President, let me take a minute to say something because of my friend, John McCain. Every day I come and open the Senate, we give the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. We do that because of the country and what that flag stands for. But I was struck today having John McCain in the Chamber. Really, he is representative of what that flag is all about--someone who not only comes from a lineage of people who have served our country, but this good man has served our country in so many different ways. We came to Washington together in 1982. We came to the Senate together in 1986. I can remember while I was still in the House of Representatives I attended a prayer breakfast, and Senator McCain was the presenter. I cannot do justice and I will not even try to describe the presentation he made about a Christmas celebration they had when he was a prisoner of war. He spent so much time in solitary confinement. He could have left the prison much earlier. He would not do that because his comrades were still there. We take a lot of things for granted. Even though John McCain and I have disagreed on occasion on things political, one thing that will always be in my mind and my heart is people such as John McCain who represent what our country is all about."

"Mr. McCain fought in Vietnam. I think that he has enough blood of peaceful citizens on his hands. It must be impossible for him to live without these disgusting scenes anymore. Mr. McCain was captured and they kept him not just in prison, but in a pit for several years. Anyone would go nuts."

"Yes, you can make that argument—that the grand sweep of history, in all its majesty and indifference, will leave behind a false version of John McCain. But you can also make another argument, and it’s the one John McCain himself has been making powerfully by his behavior and example. It is that history has revealed the real McCain at last."

"McCain’s influence in the Senate and his claim to significance in national life have always rested on his willingness to anger colleagues of both parties by paying attention to crucial issues that they would rather ignore, and on being a thoughtful contrarian on key party-line votes. He held out the promise that he could represent for a cynical and defeatist age something like what the Republican Arthur Vandenberg became to Harry Truman’s bipartisan postwar foreign policy, or what Everett Dirksen was to Lyndon B. Johnson on civil rights: the guy from the other side of the aisle who made all the difference. It is much harder now to sort out which instances of McCain’s inconvenient truth-telling were more a result of circumstance than they were a consequence of conviction. He has told friends he has no wish to be like his predecessor, Barry Goldwater, whose last election was a narrow victory. But the late-era Goldwater was a mellower, riper figure, whose live-and-let-live libertarian streak came increasingly to the fore. McCain seems to be on the reverse trajectory."

"Indeed, on nearly every issue—not just his signature ones, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—McCain has been among Obama’s most relentless critics. That approach stands in contrast to the kind of support McCain was once willing to offer another young president, Bill Clinton. In 1993, the newly elected Clinton faced a firestorm of criticism for proposing to speak at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, in Washington, in light of his own well-chronicled efforts to avoid the draft. McCain wrote the White House and volunteered to go with Clinton if it would help. McCain’s distaste for Obama is deeply personal."

"McCain and his wife, Cindy, have been living essentially separate lives for years. She has spent most of her time in Arizona while he has spent the workweek in a Virginia condominium where, he once told me, he sometimes went months at a time without ever entering the living room, simply coming home to the kitchen and bedroom late at night and leaving again early the next morning. In 2008, McCain was deeply stung by a long New York Times article about his working relationship with a lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, and its assertion that certain McCain aides feared the relationship had some years earlier morphed into an affair. To this day, McCain declines to give interviews to the paper, which was once one of his favorite outlets."

"His choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate was, of course, the apogee of his hotheaded, cold-blooded self-protectiveness. Denied his own first choice, his friend Joe Lieberman, the Independent-Democrat from Connecticut, he opted instead for the only candidate his advisers thought stood a chance of reinforcing his much-dimmed reputation as a maverick. But in doing so he chose a person so manifestly unqualified for the presidency as to make him look like little more than a hack. “He picked a running mate to prove what an outsider he was,” one former adviser said, “and by comparison he wound up looking like the most conventional person around.” Making Sarah Palin into one of the most influential people in the Republican Party may turn out to be McCain’s most lasting political legacy to his country. Rather than expressing second thoughts or misgivings about his decision, he has dug himself in and defended it."

"For most of the time from his first election until his 2000 presidential campaign he was a reliable conservative Republican: pro-defense, anti-tax, anti-abortion, solid on social issues and the culture wars. But he was never a team player, never popular with his Republican colleagues, with whom he publicly quarreled on the slightest pretext, which made him seem more independent. It could just as easily be that he was more selfish. In high school, McCain’s nicknames included “McNasty,” and for more than two decades, the overriding majority of his Senate colleagues, in both parties, have repaid his angry outbursts against them with active and unrelenting dislike."

"McCain has always lived for the fight, and he has defined himself most clearly in opposition to an enemy, whether that enemy was the rule-bound leadership of the United States Naval Academy, his North Vietnamese captors, the hometown Arizona press corps that never much liked him, his Republican congressional colleagues, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Barack Obama, or J. D. Hayworth. He has always been more of an existential politician than a consequential one, in the sense that his influence has derived not from steady, unswerving pursuit of philosophical goals or legislative achievements but from the series of unpredictable—and sometimes spectacular—fights he has chosen to pick. As his daughter Meghan recently wrote, he has always been more of a craps guy than a strategic poker player. He has never been a party leader, like his old friend Bob Dole, of Kansas, or a wise elder, like his colleague Dick Lugar, of Indiana, or a Republican moderate, like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, of Maine. He flies solo, first, last, and always, and his paramount cause has always been his own. That is the bracing reality of John McCain. It is the tragedy, too."

"The prevailing question about John McCain this year is: What happened? What happened to that other John McCain, the refreshingly unpredictable figure who stood apart from his colleagues and seemed to promise something better than politics as usual? The question may miss the point. It’s quite possible that nothing at all has changed about John McCain, a ruthless and self-centered survivor who endured five and a half years in captivity in North Vietnam, and who once told Torie Clarke that his favorite animal was the rat, because it is cunning and eats well. It’s possible to see McCain’s entire career as the story of a man who has lived in the moment, who has never stood for any overriding philosophy in any consistent way, and who has been willing to do all that it takes to get whatever it is he wants. He himself said, in the thick of his battle with Hayworth, “I’ve always done whatever’s necessary to win.” Maybe the rest of us just misunderstood."

"McCain would go on to trounce Hayworth in the August primary, by 24 points, but not before turning himself into an off-putting, almost unrecognizable political creature. In the face of Hayworth’s challenge, McCain flipped his position on repealing the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gay service members; soft-pedaled his backing of climate-change legislation; and abandoned his longtime support for comprehensive immigration reform that would recognize reality and provide an eventual path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal aliens already living in the country. Instead, he offered full-throated backing for the border fence he once mocked—“Complete the danged fence!,” he demanded in an ad—and sought political cover in the form of an endorsement by his former running mate, Sarah Palin, whose selection was surely the single most cynical decision he ever made in nearly 30 years in public life."

"Johnson played the good soldier as vice president in the three years before JFK’s assassination. But I wouldn’t bet on John McCain doing the same."

"But if Kerry does take on McCain and win, he may live to regret it. To say that the Arizona senator is not a team player is an understatement. He is known for being outspoken, petulant and fractious. Far from toeing any administration line, John McCain would relish the attention by frequently crossing it."

"Like Burr for Jefferson, John McCain would, no doubt, be a great vote-getting asset to Kerry. Two decorated Vietnam War Navy veterans would fortify the foreign policy and national security credentials of the Democratic slate. But McCain was an ardent supporter of President Bush’s move to liberate Iraq. As a surrogate campaigner for Bush in New Hampshire this year, McCain defended President Bush against the attacks by Kerry and Gov. Howard Dean on the issue of Iraq. In addition, McCain is a right-to-lifer and an anti-gun-control hardliner. Those two stands would be hard for most Democrats to accept. Yet many counter by arguing that the Democrats would swallow the pill of McCain if it would mean recovery of the White House and the ouster of the hated Bush."

"Former McCain staffers, including Woods, actively encouraged Arizona’s Republicans to come out in public support of Biden, not just on account of Trump’s poor treatment of McCain but because they believed the former senator would have voted his conscience for Biden, too."

"Arizona was, in many ways, ground zero of the Trump presidency. It was the prime locus of his furious denunciations of illegal immigrants, which spurred his political rise. It was where he built his signature border wall. It was the home of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the chain gang-loving lawman whom Trump pardoned after his conviction for violating a court order, but whom many Republicans had long grown to consider a provocative embarrassment to their party. It was where Trump warred with former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, a McCain loyalist, but also staged raucous rallies, including a pair in the week before the election. But in the end, the more moderate, independent politics epitomized by McCain sent Trump packing."

"Many in the audience had already been riled up by Trump’s famous dismissal of McCain’s years as a POW — "I like people who weren’t captured." They’d been appalled when, just months earlier, a Trump White House aide allegedly dismissed the opinion of the cancer-stricken McCain because "he’s dying anyway." They’d been enraged that, two days before the memorial service, Trump had again attacked McCain after reports of his refusal to lower American flags in his honor. On Election Day, many of them — led by McCain’s widow, Cindy — took revenge: Arizona is on target to choose a Democrat — Biden — for the first time in almost 25 years. Biden’s early lead was such that Fox News declared him the winner in the Grand Canyon State on Tuesday, altering the electoral math and pulling the rug out from under Trump’s plans to claim victory in the overall polling before the Biden-leaning mailed ballots were counted in the Midwestern states."

"Then again, McCain may not have a lot of other options. Campaigning as a bulwark to a President Clinton might be Republicans' life raft in the event of a Democratic wave, just as many Republicans saved themselves 20 years ago — by spending the race's final weeks campaigning as a bulwark against (another) President Clinton. It worked; Clinton won the White House, but Republicans kept their majorities in Congress. Republicans like McCain think they see the writing on the wall for Trump much earlier — a whole two months before Election Day. Embracing this strategy is a risk — but at this point, one they seem willing to take."

"Going back to McCain, his strategy is stacked on a lot of "ifs": If Clinton still looks headed for a win in two months. If Arizona voters dislike her enough to elect McCain as a counterweight. If he doesn't upset his GOP base by essentially ditching Trump two months out from the election. If McCain can successfully distance himself from Trump after tepidly sticking by him during the primaries. Kirkpatrick's campaign has no intention of letting voters forget that McCain continued to say he'll vote for Trump after Trump got tangled with the family of a fallen soldier and a million other controversies."

"In two sentences, McCain is betting that people believe Clinton is going to win in November. And that many voters in Arizona who don't like Trump aren't keen on Clinton either. (A recent national Washington Post-ABC News poll found a record number of Americans dislike Clinton, though she's still more popular than Trump.) McCain is pulling from a playbook Republicans used two decades ago to ditch the Republican presidential nominee. Before McCain, the highest-profile Republican to deliver that message was House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who sent a fundraising email in August that read, "If we fail to protect our majority in Congress, we could be handing President Hillary Clinton a blank check." It looked to The Post's Jenna Johnson and Karen Tumulty that Ryan might have predicted Clinton would win in a landslide (because only a historic Clinton landslide would be enough to put the GOP House majority in peril)."

"I would never vote for anyone who thinks its funny to "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"."

"Time magazine examined voting habits and concluded that most people do not vote for issues, but rather for the candidates. Specifically, they vote for people who are most like themselves. Which is why McCain and Palin have amped up their rhetoric of difference. Neither McCain nor Palin would dare mention Obama’s middle name, Hussein, but they can play up Obama’s past associations and let others connect the dots. Terrorist. Muslim. Dangerous. Other. It is legitimate to question character and dubious associations — and William Ayers is certifiably dubious. The truth is, Obama should have avoided Ayers, and his denouncement of Wright was tardy. But this is a dangerous game. The McCain campaign knows that Obama isn’t a Muslim or a terrorist, but they’re willing to help a certain kind of voter think he is. Just the way certain South Carolinians in 2000 were allowed to think that McCain’s adopted daughter from Bangladesh was his illegitimate black child."

"Though both Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden have been going on lately about how they are always, quote, "fighting for you," let us face the matter squarely. There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you."

"(we quoted Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, saying that the message for those behind the attacks is “We’re coming after you. God may have mercy on you, but we won’t.” Grace Paley?) GP: Well, what do you expect to hear from John McCain? Anyway, he’s been famous as this—as this POW, but what he did before that was do considerable amount of bombing in Vietnam. And so, he knows what it’s like, and he knows how safe he is up in the sky. He can just fly around up there and bomb towns, villages. That’s his style, and that’s his history. And it kind of gives a kind of lie to his pathetic situation as a POW."

""Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that will ever come can depend on what you do today." What better way to honor John McCain’s life of service than, as best we can, follow his example? To prove that the willingness to get in the arena and fight for this country is not reserved for the few, it is open to all of us, that in fact it’s demanded of all of us, as citizens of this great republic? That’s perhaps how we honor him best – by recognizing that there are some things bigger than party, or ambition, or money, or fame or power. That there are some things that are worth risking everything for. Principles that are eternal. Truths that are abiding. At his best, John showed us what that means. For that, we are all deeply in his debt. May God bless John McCain, and may God bless this country he served so well."

"More than once during his career, John drew comparisons to Teddy Roosevelt. And I’m sure it’s been noted that Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” oration seems tailored to John. Most of you know it: Roosevelt speaks of those who strive, who dare to do great things, who sometimes win and sometimes come up short, but always relish a good fight – a contrast to those cold, timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Isn’t that the spirit we celebrate this week? That striving to be better, to do better, to be worthy of the great inheritance that our founders bestowed. So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse, can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult, in phony controversies and manufactured outrage. It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough, but in fact is born of fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that."

"We didn’t advertise it, but every so often over the course of my presidency, John would come over to the White House, and we’d just sit and talk in the Oval Office, just the two of us – we’d talk about policy and we’d talk about family and we’d talk about the state of our politics. And our disagreements didn’t go away during these private conversations. Those were real, and they were often deep. But we enjoyed the time we shared away from the bright lights. And we laughed with each other, and we learned from each other. We never doubted the other man’s sincerity or the other man’s patriotism, or that when all was said and done, we were on the same team. We never doubted we were on the same team. For all of our differences, we shared a fidelity to the ideals for which generations of Americans have marched, and fought, and sacrificed, and given their lives. We considered our political battles a privilege, an opportunity to serve as stewards of those ideals here at home, and to do our best to advance them around the world. We saw this country as a place where anything is possible – and citizenship as an obligation to ensure it forever remains that way."

"Of course, John was the first to tell us that he was not perfect. Like all of us who go into public service, he did have an ego. Like all of us, there were no doubt some votes he cast, some compromises he struck, some decisions he made that he wished he could have back. It’s no secret, it’s been mentioned that he had a temper, and when it flared up, it was a force of nature, a wonder to behold – his jaw grinding, his face reddening, his eyes boring a hole right through you. Not that I ever experienced it firsthand, mind you. But to know John was to know that as quick as his passions might flare, he was just as quick to forgive and ask for forgiveness. He knew more than most his own flaws and his blind spots, and he knew how to laugh at himself. And that self-awareness made him all the more compelling."

"And finally, while John and I disagreed on all kinds of foreign policy issues, we stood together on America’s role as the one indispensable nation, believing that with great power and great blessings comes great responsibility. That burden is borne most heavily by our men and women in uniform – service members like Doug, Jimmy, and Jack, who followed in their father’s footsteps – as well as the families who serve alongside our troops. But John understood that our security and our influence was won not just by our military might, not just by our wealth, not just by our ability to bend others to our will, but from our capacity to inspire others, with our adherence to a set of universal values – like rule of law and human rights, and an insistence on the God-given dignity of every human being."