Nowhere were those traits more manifest than in Vietnam, where he was stripped of all but his character. He boiled over in foul curses at his captors. Because his father was the commander of all American forces in the Pacific during most of his five and a half years of captivity, Mr. McCain, a Navy lieutenant commander, became the most famous prisoner of the war, a victim of horrendous torture and a tool of enemy propagandists.The New York Times obituary for John McCain https://t.co/3deMbFqo4I— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 26, 2018
Shot down over Hanoi, suffering broken arms and a shattered leg, he was subjected to solitary confinement for two years and beaten frequently. Often he was suspended by ropes lashing his arms behind him. He attempted suicide twice. His weight fell to 105 pounds. He rejected early release to keep his honor and to avoid an enemy propaganda coup or risk demoralizing his fellow prisoners.
He finally cracked under torture and signed a “confession.” No one believed it, although he felt the burden of betraying his country. To millions of Americans, Mr. McCain was the embodiment of courage: a war hero who came home on crutches, psychologically scarred and broken in body, but not in spirit. He underwent long medical treatments and rehabilitation, but was left permanently disabled, unable to raise his arms over his head. Someone had to comb his hair.
Some of the pictures in the Times obituary are absolute classics. McCain was a beautiful man in his youth, especially standing in front of a fighter plane.
The Times spends a lot of time up front talking about McCain's recent politics, which strikes me as a mistake. The man did a lot, and the part of it that happened in the last two years is hardly the most significant, though a few things--like the ACA vote--obviously were.
They get into the good stuff further down:
Mr. McCain possessed the rugged independence of a natural leader. It came out at parties and in carousing with friends. Caught by the Shore Patrol at an off-limits bar, he led a carload of drinking buddies in a daring escape. “Being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck,” one recalled. In 1958, he graduated 894th in his class, fifth from the bottom.
Oh man. Ugly American Night with John McCain sounds absolutely amazing.
Seeking the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, Mr. McCain pledged “a fight to take our government back from the power brokers and special interests.” Gov. George W. Bush of Texas was favored, but Mr. McCain won the New Hampshire primary, 49 to 30 percent. South Carolina’s primary then loomed as crucial.
It was one of the era’s dirtiest campaigns. Anonymous smears falsely claimed that Mr. McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock, that his wife was a drug addict and that he was a homosexual, a traitor and mentally unstable. McCain ads portrayed Mr. Bush as a liar and called his religious supporters, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the televangelist Pat Robertson, “agents of intolerance.”
I remember this well. It's easily my least favorite era of recent Republican politics because it heralded everything that has come in the years since.
I've always felt like America lost an opportunity from the mid- to late-90s up until 9/11. George H.W. Bush described a "New World Order" of collective security back in 1988 that I badly wanted. I felt at the time that it was the true vision of America's place in the world, that peace and prosperity for all Mankind was right there if we only had the courage and the collective decency to grab it.
We did not. And this primary was the tipping point when it slipped away.
I supported McCain both times he ran for president, but this time, in 2000, was when we really needed him.
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Obituary: John McCain https://t.co/8fInOXUnMv— The Economist (@TheEconomist) August 26, 2018
Opinion: McCain leaves the stage when we need him most https://t.co/GW8VWM5fL8— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 26, 2018
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