At least he’s not being buried in a gold plated casket like Aretha. What a waste.
It amazes me how beloved McCain was among people who didn’t share his political beliefs. That speaks well of his. character.
@TatinG"At least he’s not being buried in a gold plated casket like Aretha. What a waste."
Waste of what? Gold? Money? Other stars, like Michael Jackson and James Brown were buried with extreme caskets. Same with Roman Catholic Popes, European royalty and Egyptian pharaohs. A gold-plated bronze casket doesn’t do any harm IMHO. Not personal choice, but I don’t understand the criticism.
Waste of money. Spend so much money just to bury it.
Well, it’s her money and with $80,000,000 , the casket is a drop in the bucket. Having no will and not setting aside money for her favorite charities seemed stranger to me. But, again, not my money. RIP, Aretha.
Amazing that John McCain’s mother is 106 years old! She looked wonderful and outlived an 81 year old son !
I do wonder how the money is coming into this. Private planes, multiple services (must be exhausting), etc. But, RIP, John .
Lovely and affecting musical choices, especially Renee Fleming’s emotional rendition of Danny Boy.
The memorial service is very moving.
A moving call to what is best in us, and what is best in our country.
Some facts that have influenced my opinion about John McCain that you may or may not already be aware of:
- Flew 22 bombing missions (before being captured) that killed at least thousands and probably tens of thousands of civilians
- cheated on and left his disabled wife from before the war to marry a woman 17 years younger whose inherited wealth funded his political career
- vigorously supported the continuation of the Vietnam war after his return
- used a racial slur I won't repeat here (and defended its use) for his captors
- was a member of the Keating Five
- was one of the loudest and most influential voices pushing the Iraq War that led to over a million deaths and destabilized an entire region
- pushed for war in Iran and Syria as well (McCain was extremely hawkish his entire career)
- talked a big game about ending torture (because he was tortured) then hamstrung a bill outlawing torture
- pushed for campaign finance reform after he got reprimanded for the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal but voted (with his party as usual) for the very judges took McCain-Feingold down
- voted against Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- brought us Sarah Palin
- voted with Trump 83% of the time
- then, as his last real move in politics, did not resign even though he knew he was dying. Doing so would trigger a special election, and McCain's not doing so allowed Arizona's governor to appoint a replacement who will now serve for two full years without the voters of Arizona having any say in the matter).
These facts may not matter to you, and I’m not posting this to tell you how to think or feel. We all must perform our own moral calculus in this world, after all, and this isn’t the place for polemics. But in the last week or so I’ve had conversations with a lot of people who weren’t even aware of most of this stuff. It’s good for democracy for us to know what our politicians are doing in our names.
While McCain was a flawed person, this is a hit piece, given that you left out mitigating factors. I won’t go through each one, but here are the top 3:
How is this remotely relevant? Do you think as a young fighter pilot he had any say in what missions he flew or how many people were killed as a result? Were they legal orders that he had to follow? Clearly the answer is yes.
And the key point is “for his captors”, you know, the specific people that tortured him for 5+ years. Not for the Vietnamese people, for whom he pushed for normalizing relations. He is loved there.
Upon further analysis, you might discover they belonged to the same party as well.
It’s worth remarking that he volunteered for the war (unlike 648,500 who were drafted, 17,725 of whom died in the war) and chose to be a fighter pilot (it’s not easy!), and people can and do refuse to follow orders sometimes. Of course you may still be fine with it, as I said.
Yes, as I stated. Again, you may be fine with it, as I said.
I’m well aware, but given his reputation as a “maverick” who “reached across the aisle,” it surprised me. It may not surprise others, and again, it may not matter to you, as I said.
His first wife forgave him and is attending tomorrow’s service to honor him, and has publicly stated her great respect for him. It isn’t for us to judge their relationship further. He earned the respect of his political enemies and even his torturers, who mourned his death. That speaks volumes.
I’m a politics nerd, so I did know all the things listed in #69. Moreover, I don’t share most of McCain’s political beliefs.
Nevertheless, I find so much to admire in him. Foremost is his honor and bravery in refusing early release. But also, McCain believed in legislative work. He believed that legislators with differing beliefs could work together, argue, compromise, and come up with incremental solutions that would make the world better. I wish we had more people like that in Congress.
I have watched Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt sing his praises on television over the last two years. You would think that with high profile advisory roles in the 2008 campaign that they would have been extended invitations to one of the services, but they and another key '08 campaign were shut out. Someone on the “inside” told Politico that they were considered backstabbers over their cooperation with the HBO movie on the campaign and selection of Sarah Palin. However, Schmidt has been quoted saying prior to McCain’s death that he had several conversations with McCain over the last two years and thought they were all good now. I write all this to say that if you check their Twitter feeds, they have shown nothing but support for the McCain family this week and admiration for the man. There was clearly something about the man that nurtured that level of devotion despite his foibles.
I too was aware of all the above, Marvin100. I think if you researched more, you would learn that there was not a man who loved his country more or sacrificed more for it than McCain. Without exception, even his political enemies admired his courage, service and patriotism. That is exceedingly rare these days, and resonates with most Americans.
Senator McCain’s personal perspective went way beyond politics! His experience and personal positions regarding interrogation and the treatment of POWs clearly reflected a man who would not follow the crowd when the going got rough. He thought for himself. Senator McCain was a leader in the truest sense of the word.
I was a 96C (interrogation) in the US Army in the 1960’s. McCain was on the side of the professionals.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Per the rules of the forum, College Confidential is not a debate society, so I have deleted several posts. I’ll allow a user to make a point, defend it once, and then move on.
To be clear on concept, I (or any other moderator) do not delete posts because they are unpopular, because they do not agree with my opinions (and good luck guessing my political leanings from my postings) or for any reason other than ToS violation.
Also to be clear, while political discussion is not allowed, mentioning a fact is not a political statement.
I strongly recommend reading the short piece “Mourning a patriot whose politics you hate”.
Note that originally McCain did not want to be in the military but had no choice in the matter. He tried his best to get expelled from the Naval Academy (the only acceptable college for his father and the only allowed path for him) and nearly succeeded. Once he graduated (at the very bottom of his class) he took service seriously and thus went to Vietnam.
Politically, he was a conservative.
He wasn’t honored because he killed people in the war, supported the war in Iraq, or even because he was a conservative. He wasn’t honored despite them either.
I’m guessing he was honored because he was a man whom people could disagree with yet respect; and because “when the grain is under hail, only a fool plays coy”/ he wasn’t pusillanimous on the party/country issue.
Here’s the link to [Mourning A Patriot Whose Politics You Hate](Mourning a Patriot Whose Politics You Hate | Crooked Media).