To celebrate John McCain’s life and legacy last weekend, I watched Game Change for the first time in several years. I hadn’t seen the TV movie since Trump was elected. I was left feeling… unsettled. It was just ten years ago when a Republican presidential campaign manager refused to double-down on lies and dog-whistle racism, even if the base was begging for it. We’re just a decade removed from McCain respecting Barack Obama’s position as the first African-American presidential candidate and refusing to attack his reverend or his church. It feels so long ago. Anyway, I was moved by the fact that McCain wanted former president Barack Obama to speak at his memorial service. As it turns out, McCain even made a point of requesting this from Obama personally back in April of this year.
A parting lesson in American civility from Sen. John McCain lies in the roster of leaders he personally selected to pay tribute at his memorial service Saturday at the National Cathedral. It was a day in early April when Barack Obama received an unexpected call from McCain, who was battling brain cancer and said he had a blunt question to ask: Would you deliver one of the eulogies at my funeral?
Obama, who is responsible for extinguishing McCain’s second bid for the White House a decade ago, immediately answered that he would. He was taken aback by the request, aides say, as was George W. Bush, another former rival, who received a similar call from McCain this spring.
When the 43rd and 44th US presidents stand on the high altar of the soaring cathedral on Saturday, after the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” anthem is sung, they will not only be celebrating the life of John Sidney McCain III. It will be McCain, too, having a not-so-subtle last word, aimed at another president he made clear he did not want to attend: Donald J. Trump.
I’ve been wondering whether McCain and Obama had somehow developed an intimate relationship after Obama left office, if they had been having quiet conversations over the last year or two that haven’t been publicly discussed as McCain neared the end of his journey.
It turns out, after talking to several friends of both men this week, their relationship isn’t intimate at all, but rather one rooted in mutual respect and a shared sense of alarm at today’s caustic political climate. Their telephone call on that April day was first arranged by advisers, not McCain simply dialing up Obama as he would do with his legion of friends, a sign they were hardly tight.In fact, the two have spoken by phone only a couple of times since Obama left the White House, aides to both men say, most notably last summer when Obama reached out after McCain cast the deciding vote to salvage the Affordable Care Act. He thanked him. The call was brief. Obama has not been among the long parade of visitors who came to see McCain on his Arizona ranch as he fought brain cancer. George and Laura Bush dropped by not long ago, as did former Vice President Joe Biden, a close and longtime friend of McCain’s in the Senate, who will deliver a eulogy at a memorial service on Thursday in Arizona.
The rest of the CNN piece is about why McCain made such a point of personally inviting Bush and Obama and why he wanted his memorial and funeral to be lessons in civility. While I loathed McCain when he was running in 2008, he of course looks a million times better than Trump right now. Mostly, I think it’s quaint to think that anyone really believes we can put the white supremacist genie back in the bottle – it’s not like all of the Deplorables are just going to *go away* once Trump is out of office. They’ll be absorbed within the Republican Party and we’ll be able to see it every day. Still, it’s a nice gesture that McCain personally called Obama and requested this.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
I feel like McCain’s coping mechanism in his final months was doing the most to middle finger Trump via his last wishes. He also asked an outspoken Russian dissident to be a pallbearer.
I loved that. McCain shit-stirring until the end.
The really disturbing thing, though, is how McCain’s supposed best buddy, Lindsey Graham, has suddenly become a Trump apologist. I seriously think the White House (or the Kremlin, let’s face it) has something on him. That, or he’s just a disloyal opportunist.
Lindsey Graham, House Impeachment manager, has spent a career whining in public and always voting to put GOP over USA. As a member of the Senate judiciary committee, He was just fine with refusing to give Merrick Garland a nomination hearing. He helped steal a Supreme Court seat.
And even after the end. Did you read his farewell letter? Yowza!
Considering the way many members of that party are letting 45 do whatever he wants and with little if any protests. I would not be surprised if Russia has dirt on quite a few Republicans
Graham walked back his Sessions remarks, but I hear ya. Immediately after McCain passed Schumer proposed renaming the Russell building in tribute but yesterday Graham notably left that option off the list of possible honors in favor of stuff like … portrait hanging.
McCain was his good friend, war hero, and senate lion. Russell was a democrat. But a virulent, southern, segregationist democrat so I guess #priorities. Ugh.
Graham took (IIRC) over $800,000 from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who has close ties to a couple of Putin-connected Russian oligarchs.
RBC I think that’s a strong theory, and I’ve seen it discussed quite a bit. The GOP was apparently hacked at the same time as the Dem’s emails were released, but nothing has come out yet. There’s definitely a reason they’re letting Dump shit all over everything right now and not pushing the Russia stuff.
@RBC – twitterer lulu lemew, a fairly normal twitterer, had a long thread based off an Epoch Times (of all things, and no I don’t trust it as a source and neither does she, but she said it matched what she had found elsewhere) that suggests that Russia actually created a pedophile ring in the 70s and 80s, allegedly continuing today, with the express purpose of creating kompromat on government officials in the West.
Epoch Times. Pedophile rings. I mean, it sounds nuts but also it sounds totally normal for this bunch and would explain a lot.
Graham stated in a TV interview that his campaign’s email was hacked. So… yeah. He did a 180 after that golf game with 45 and has been mostly sycophantic ever since. I think that quiet one-on-one time was when 45 made it clear (probably in indirect mob-boss style, not getting too specific) that Graham could play along or have his reputation destroyed with whatever kompromat the Kremlin has. Graham has been acting like a man seized with terror ever since.
I think you’re right. I remember Lindsay Graham going on many talk shows and speaking about how much he disliked Trump. He did not hold back. What’s going on? Does Putin have something on him or have his poll numbers dropped that drastically?
Lindsay’s change of posture is weird. Sometimes I wonder if Trump has not been using his access to all sorts of classified information to find material to blackmail people. Not only politicians, but his business counterparts, potential investors. Th trove of potentially damaging material they must have in their hands now is a scary thought.
@Betsy
I would have loved to read that thread, but apparently the user doesn’t exist anymore… just makes it all more mysterious
Lindsey Graham f****** HATED Trump during the primaries. He seethed with hatred for that man. This is just getting what he wants.
The Other Katherine, your post makes a lot of sense. Damn, these are crazy times.
Lindsay and all those other Gopers who know right from wrong should just say screw it and do the right thing. Don’t let the nazis hold their secrets over their heads. The truth shall set you free.
I don’t see this as crass as a “middle finger” or that he is simply trying to stir up sh*t. It’s not about drama.
I think his choices are more about championing the things that he felt were truly important: protecting our democracy. I disagreed with McCain on a lot of things, but I think he was sincerely concerned about our country. I think he left this world deeply afraid for the United States of America.
It’s how politics is supposed to be. People can disagree, and have genuine debates about things like use of military force, role of government in regulating business, etc – but can still be civil to each other and still respect each other.
I would say its how older politicians are, but you see some of these people like Lindsey Graham who have clearly forgotten that and just do Trump’s bidding.
Jon Lovett (with PSA) said something about this that rang true for me – about how the world would be a worse place if McCain had his way, policy-wise, but it would be a better a place if more politicians were like McCain in terms of character. And I think that’s a good way to put it.
He did unleash Palin though.
I agree with Lovett. I disagreed with McCain on just about everything, and his constant calls for military interventions would have ended in disaster. But he could admit when he was wrong, stood up to bullies, and – bonus points! – didn’t seem to be a flaming racist or misogynist. That’s where we’re setting the bar these days.
He voted in line with Trump’s position 83% of the time.
He voted against Martin Luther King Day.
He supported the invasion of Iraq and the list goes on.
Rescue Cat, a lot of people supported the invasion of Iraq at the time. It was nearly unanimous. Regarding the MLK vote: McCain’s own words on the topic:
“”We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I myself made long ago when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong,” he said, to loud reaction from the crowd. “I was wrong, and eventually realized it in time to give full support — full support — for a state holiday in my home state of Arizona. I’d remind you that we can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans.”
You didn’t address the point about McCain voting in line with Trump’s position 83% of the time.
Of course he voted with Trump 83% of the time… He’s a republican not a democrat…
@ Morning Coffee – Canada didn’t enter the Iraq war. It may have been unanimous in American and UK politics, but it wasn’t globally.
@CdnKitty, MorningCoffee didn’t mention other countries. Oviously the war was mostly extremely unpopular outside of US.
It really is amazing and appalling how the Trumpists have completely disregarded the rules and norms of politics.
The PSA discussion about McCain was really good. As for him unleashing Palin, as the Pod guys said I think he realized his error pretty quickly and spent the rest of the campaign countering her MAGA impulses.
Their take on McCain at the end of his campaign was interesting and something I hadn’t considered. I observed that he seemed worn down and checked out and chalked it up to fatigue and a realization that maybe he wasn’t up to cleaning up W’s messes. They seemed to think it was because he realized the horrors that had been unleashed with Palin.
I think they would have emerged into the mainstream anyway but perhaps just not as dramatically or forcefully as they did with the speech Palin made at the convention. I have always pinpointed that as the moment that civility and respect in politics died.
I thought that was a good take on him too. I found it interesting that he defended Obama as a good man, more than just that one famous time with the crazy lady making the rounds again. I get the impression they respected each other in general, even if they didn’t agree on much.
“I have always pinpointed that as the moment that civility and respect in politics died.”
Yes, me too. Palin was when the bottom fell out on standards.
Vietnam couldn’t break this soldier and those vile Republicans couldn’t either.
In their final days, dying people see everything with clarity. He knew what he had to do and he did it.
Maybe his death can dissolve the Republican Party as military people have started to distance themselves from GOP.
His chosen music will include The Battle Hymn of the Republic, take that confederate flag wavers.
Yes, LP, I took that the same way, too. It’s as if he planned his funeral to be a huge middle finger directed at all the residents in Trumplandia.
We had the organist play that on our wedding day (it was the Fourth).
Glad for this. I have to shake my head about Bush. He looks decent next to our present WH occupant.
Also glad “God wants me to be president” Pence won’t be attending, at least as a speaker, though he will speak at the lying in state in the Rotunda. His groveling, dutiful demeanor and “call me President” behind drump’s back disgusts me.
Such and honorable and strong guy. It’s good when people aren’t so petty that they’ll close the people who beat them in the election, or don’t alway agree with them, out of their lives forever.
I’ve always respected McCain, but all these specials, Lindsey Graham in tears giving a speech about his best friend, and seeing so many lash back at Trump for his disrespectful behavior, has really been touching
Graham is claiming McCain was his best friend? Ugh.
I’m not a Graham fan, but yes, they were very close friends.
Yes. For decades.
Unity is so important right now. I thank McCain for these decisions. Also glad he chose the National Cathedral.
I didn’t much like McCain for unleashing Sarah Palin on us, but reading all these stories and watching the episode Yes We Can of CNN’s The 2000s has been very enlightening.
It also made me miss how things were when Obama was president. Hell the Bush episodes made me miss those days too.
I believe that McCain was a good and honorable and courageous man in his personal dealings and as a soldier, and that he was intelligent, informed, honest as a public servant. But in his politics he was scarcely ever the “maverick” and “rebel” that the press liked to depict him as. I vehemently disagreed with his politics and will always remember the horrible joke he made about adolescent Chelsea Clinton’s looks. But I recognize that as a man, he was about 10 million miles ahead of Trump.
Now that politicians from both sides of the aisle want to rename the Senate building after McCain, NATO is considering naming its headquarters building in honor of him, and all of these people who McCain didn’t always agree with, are not only invited to,but also are being asked to speak at the funeral Trump was banned from, must have him seething with anger and jealousy
It’s the best mental image, isn’t it? Him rage stroking over the fact that no one except the losers like him and no one will honor him.
The Deplorables have been apart of the Republican Party for decades now. The difference is that are no longer quietly winked and nudged to at small party gatherings. They are openly courted in front of the whole world on Twitter.
I so miss President Obama…
Me too, Mego, me too.
Am I the only one that remembers that McCain voted 83% of the time in line with Trump? Did everyone forget that McCain didn’t want women to have control over their bodies?
Really? Just me? Hmmm….
Women should have control over their bodies but not on the expense of other people’s bodies.
I mentioned that up thread. Some people have memories like goldfish. McCain insults Trump and just like that so-called liberals are looking at him through rose colored glasses. They’re so impressionable.
I’m pro-choice, but I know that being concerned for the unborn is definitely not the same thing as thinking that women should not have control over their bodies.
I watched Game Change again recently too. I’m not grateful for this era of Politics either and you were right about the part where Sara Paulson’s Nicole Wallace cries about not even voting. I did not know that Nicole Wallace was the gal she was and I had seen the movie when it was released and followed the election IRL; rewatching the movie has made me more interested in her reporting. Sorry this is not really a McCain comment as much as a Game Change one. I wish ‘Mavericking’ had made a real difference toward the good of our nation but after the Palin debacle and the ushering in of this administration and our lovely #45, it’s pretty obvious Lady Liberty does not have her arms open for everyone. I miss President Obama’s and I should have sent him a thank you card for putting up with us all.
Being a good loser (campaign-wise, in this case) is a foreign concept to some.
Regarding his family, I wonder how many people think he had only one child? All of his children must be grief-stricken. The main focus always seems to be Meghan.
The dotard seems particularly unhinged this week what with raising and lowering the WH flag, trying to quick save face by throwing out a few comments about what an honorable man McCain was, then telling an audience that if the Dems win big in fall they will be “violent” (WTF?) and then starting a beef with Google. Lol! Way to divert attention Donny. He is so pathetic. I feel like we are watching him writhing around like an ant under a magnifying glass. And like typical 5 year olds we watch for a minute then run off to play in the backyard.
I was never a McCain fan. He would be all mavericky until he had to vote, then he’d cave in. I see Lindsy Graham is doing the same. I almost liked him when he was pointing out what a dangerous fool Trump is. But now he is back to toeing the party line. I hope every politician running this fall and hanging on Trump’s coattails, loses miserably. I want a clear message sent.
If Trump doesn’t get indicted for something I hope he just gets locked in his bedroom and they take away his iPad and cellphone. He can sit and eat Micky D’s and watch Faux News while we try to fix all the messes he has made.
How about we start with that smug little effer Jared. When is New York going indict that little fraud for cheating and lying about his rental apartments and trying to squeeze rent control folks out of their apartments? Why do all these fraudsters still have jobs?
Watched the replay of the service this morning. Listening to Obama and even George W. made me so wishful for those days. Lots of subtle digs at Orangtini and the minions.