Kudos to John McCain, American Patriot

[BoSoxGal]

John McCain was awarded the Liberty Medal tonight; he had this to say:

Thank you, Joe, my old, dear friend, for those mostly undeserved kind words. Vice President Biden and I have known each other for a lot of years now, more than forty, if you’re counting. We knew each other back when we were young and handsome and smarter than everyone else but were too modest to say so.

Joe was already a senator, and I was the Navy’s liaison to the Senate. My duties included escorting senate delegations on overseas trips, and in that capacity, I supervised the disposition of the delegation’s luggage, which could require – now and again – when no one of lower rank was available for the job – that I carry someone worthy’s bag. Once or twice that worthy turned out to be the young senator from Delaware. I’ve resented it ever since.

Joe has heard me joke about that before. I hope he has heard, too, my profession of gratitude for his friendship these many years. It has meant a lot to me. We served in the Senate together for over twenty years, during some eventful times, as we passed from young men to the fossils who appear before you this evening.

We didn’t always agree on the issues. We often argued – sometimes passionately. But we believed in each other’s patriotism and the sincerity of each other’s convictions. We believed in the institution we were privileged to serve in. We believed in our mutual responsibility to help make the place work and to cooperate in finding solutions to our country’s problems. We believed in our country and in our country’s indispensability to international peace and stability and to the progress of humanity. And through it all, whether we argued or agreed, Joe was good company. Thank you, old friend, for your company and your service to America.

Thank you, too, to the National Constitution Center, and everyone associated with it for this award. Thank you for that video, and for the all too generous compliments paid to me this evening. I’m aware of the prestigious company the Liberty Medal places me in. I’m humbled by it, and I’ll try my best not to prove too unworthy of it.

Some years ago, I was present at an event where an earlier Liberty Medal recipient spoke about America’s values and the sacrifices made for them. It was 1991, and I was attending the ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The World War II veteran, estimable patriot and good man, President George H.W. Bush, gave a moving speech at the USS Arizona memorial. I remember it very well. His voice was thick with emotion as he neared the end of his address. I imagine he was thinking not only of the brave Americans who lost their lives on December 7, 1941, but of the friends he had served with and lost in the Pacific where he had been the Navy’s youngest aviator.

‘Look at the water here, clear and quiet …’ he directed, ‘One day, in what now seems another lifetime, it wrapped its arms around the finest sons any nation could ever have, and it carried them to a better world.’
He could barely get out the last line, ‘May God bless them, and may God bless America, the most wondrous land on earth.’

The most wondrous land on earth, indeed. I’ve had the good fortune to spend sixty years in service to this wondrous land. It has not been perfect service, to be sure, and there were probably times when the country might have benefited from a little less of my help. But I’ve tried to deserve the privilege as best I can, and I’ve been repaid a thousand times over with adventures, with good company, and with the satisfaction of serving something more important than myself, of being a bit player in the extraordinary story of America. And I am so very grateful.

What a privilege it is to serve this big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, striving, daring, beautiful, bountiful, brave, magnificent country. With all our flaws, all our mistakes, with all the frailties of human nature as much on display as our virtues, with all the rancor and anger of our politics, we are blessed.

We are living in the land of the free, the land where anything is possible, the land of the immigrant’s dream, the land with the storied past forgotten in the rush to the imagined future, the land that repairs and reinvents itself, the land where a person can escape the consequences of a self-centered youth and know the satisfaction of sacrificing for an ideal, the land where you can go from aimless rebellion to a noble cause, and from the bottom of your class to your party’s nomination for president.

We are blessed, and we have been a blessing to humanity in turn. The international order we helped build from the ashes of world war, and that we defend to this day, has liberated more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. This wondrous land has shared its treasures and ideals and shed the blood of its finest patriots to help make another, better world. And as we did so, we made our own civilization more just, freer, more accomplished and prosperous than the America that existed when I watched my father go off to war on December 7, 1941.

To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain 'the last best hope of earth' for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.

We live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil. We are the custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad. We have done great good in the world. That leadership has had its costs, but we have become incomparably powerful and wealthy as we did. We have a moral obligation to continue in our just cause, and we would bring more than shame on ourselves if we don’t. We will not thrive in a world where our leadership and ideals are absent. We wouldn’t deserve to.

I am the luckiest guy on earth. I have served America’s cause – the cause of our security and the security of our friends, the cause of freedom and equal justice – all my adult life. I haven’t always served it well. I haven’t even always appreciated what I was serving. But among the few compensations of old age is the acuity of hindsight. I see now that I was part of something important that drew me along in its wake even when I was diverted by other interests. I was, knowingly or not, along for the ride as America made the future better than the past.

And I have enjoyed it, every single day of it, the good ones and the not so good ones. I’ve been inspired by the service of better patriots than me. I’ve seen Americans make sacrifices for our country and her causes and for people who were strangers to them but for our common humanity, sacrifices that were much harder than the service asked of me. And I’ve seen the good they have done, the lives they freed from tyranny and injustice, the hope they encouraged, the dreams they made achievable.

May God bless them. May God bless America, and give us the strength and wisdom, the generosity and compassion, to do our duty for this wondrous land, and for the world that counts on us. With all its suffering and dangers, the world still looks to the example and leadership of America to become, another, better place. What greater cause could anyone ever serve.

Thank you again for this honor. I’ll treasure it.

Yes, I know I was seriously pissed at him a few months ago - but I remain overall an admirer. I’m sad that he is dying.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I read that and I can almost forgive him for Sarah Palin.

I read this one sentence for a second time:

We live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil.

OK you get a pass on Palin. But don't do it again.

[Big RR]

We often argued – sometimes passionately. But we believed in each other’s patriotism and the sincerity of each other’s convictions. We believed in the institution we were privileged to serve in. We believed in our mutual responsibility to help make the place work and to cooperate in finding solutions

would that the current people in government could do this--but it's much easier to yell and wave your arm than to work together to solve problems.

[RayThom]

[BoSoxGal]

Brilliant toon, says it all!

It’s too bad we didn’t get to see a McCain presidency - sans Sarah Palin, of course! I love Barack Obama and believe he brought much dignity to the office, but if we’d had McCain instead we wouldn’t have had Trump, I’m sure of that.

I suppose, though, that what happened under Obama and what’s happened since was inevitable and we would have struggled with the sickness of racism in light of the first president of color, whenever that happened. Perhaps best to be getting it over with now - just hope our democracy survives it.

[BoSoxGal]

Senator McCain is stopping treatment for his glioblastoma.

It breaks my fucking heart to know he’ll be greatly dishonored in his passing by the biggest scum who ever sat in the White House.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Sad. One of those guys with whom I had profound political differences but who I never believed had anything but the best interests of his country at heart. Never more than when he told a woman at a public campaign meeting that Barack Obama was a decent man.

[BoSoxGal]

I watched this a few weeks ago and highly recommend it:

[RayThom]

I've long forgiven John McCain for exposing that scourge on America, Sarah Palin, to sunlight.

He is a good man, a patriot, who couldn't always get it right.

I wish him a comfortable death with dignity. Peace.

[Lord Jim]

Very sorry to see this is one fight he can't win...

In an era of "celebrity heroes" John McCain is the real deal... His voice will be greatly missed...

It breaks my fucking heart to know he’ll be greatly dishonored in his passing by the biggest scum who ever sat in the White House.

At least he won't be at the funeral...

[BoSoxGal]

He better not say one. fucking. word!

[Lord Jim]

Trump shows more regard for the North Korean dictator than the North American war hero:

(quelle surprise)

Trump extends 'warmest regards' to Kim Jung Un, but snubs John McCain in senator's final days

President Trump gave a social media shout out to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un Friday, but said nothing about Senator John McCain, a decorated Vietnam War vet, whose family announced hours earlier he would no longer seek treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer.

“In the meantime I would like to send my warmest regards and respect to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him soon!” Trump posted on Twitter.

McCain was diagnosed with a brain tumor called, Glioblastoma, which he has fought up to this point with aggressive treatment.

But the senator’s family said in a statement "the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict."

McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam after his jet fighter was shot down, is 81 years old.

"With his usual strength of will, he has now chosen to discontinue medical treatment," the family said.

Thoughts and prayers poured in from elected officials from both parties and leaders from across the political spectrum throughout the day.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, called the six-term senator "an American hero" who always put his country before himself and whose life has been guided by a "spirit of service and civility" that is a model for Americans regardless of political affiliation.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says the McCain family is "in our prayers at this incredibly difficult hour."

Reverend Al Sharpton tweeted out his prayers for the senator, noting that they were not often on the same side of an issue.

“We didn’t always agree but we developed a mutual respect. In life one can learn to disagree without being disagreeable,” Sharpton said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called him a “national treasure.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny-news ... story.html#

He also managed to find time to wish Vince McMahon a happy birthday:

Donald J. Trump
‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump
5h5 hours ago

Donald J. Trump Retweeted Vince McMahon

Happy birthday Vince, you are truly one of the greats!

But BSG may have this one right...

He's such a graceless pig he probably can't bring himself to say anything appropriate, so the best one can probably hope for is that he just keep his vile maw shut...

I expect that eventually somebody at the White House will release at least a perfunctorily appropriate statement, and/or somebody other than Pig Boy will say something minimally acceptable through his twitter account....

The question is whether he will be able to contain himself from saying something disgusting anyway...

Past performance would indicate the answer to this is no, (I've yet to see Trump restrain himself from taking the lowest road imaginable; in fact he frequently manages to come up with something even lower than anything I could have imagined) but one can hope...

[RayThom]

RIP, John McCain

[BoSoxGal]

Same day as Senator Kennedy; almost like Jefferson and Adams.

RIP, Senator McCain - you inspired my public service ethic when I was just a kid, and though I disagreed with most of your politics, you earned my respect most of the time. We need more like you, and I'm sorry we don't have them.

[rubato]

Other than his complete and disgusting moral capitulation when he ran for president I respected him as someone I could disagree with honorably. but in tha campaign he was a total moral leper. He flip flopped on torture, he flip flopped on economic voo doo. &c. He betrayed his own values.

The best of the Republican party is a very very low bar.

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

Sen. John McCain had been planning his own funeral services over the last year, often discussing the plans with close friends who visited his Arizona ranch.

Two people close to McCain said he wanted three locations for services: Arizona, National Cathedral in Washington, and Annapolis.

President Trump, as we and others reported earlier this summer, isn’t invited. That was made clear in a message from the family through General Kelly.

This remains his wish, two family friends said today.

McCain’s decline came fairly suddenly. A close group of friends were planning to be with him next Wednesday on his 82nd birthday, but they were told Wednesday he wouldn’t make it that long.

[dales]

Will Trump remain silent?

[RayThom]

... President Trump, as we and others reported earlier this summer, isn’t invited. That was made clear in a message from the family through General Kelly... This remains his wish, two family friends said today.

So, will it be the "Be Best" ambassadors Melania, Ivanka, and Jared attending the funeral in Lord Dampnut's stead?

From Drumpf and his White House handlers:

“My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!” Drumpf tweeted.

Trump’s reelection campaign later released a statement that read: “All of us at the Trump Campaign offer our sincere condolences to the family of Senator John McCain following his passing this evening. We encourage all Americans to take the opportunity to remember Senator McCain and his family in their prayers on this sad occasion.”

When asked for an official statement on McCain’s death, the White House referred to Trump’s tweet.

Anything more than this on Drumpf's behalf will be patronizing and/or hypocritical.

[BoSoxGal]

Piece of shit already tweeted; sends his ‘respect’ to the family, not a single word of tribute to McCain.

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!
8:44 PM - Aug 25, 2018

[Lord Jim]

Piece of shit already tweeted; sends his ‘respect’ to the family, not a single word of tribute to McCain.

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!
8:44 PM - Aug 25, 2018

Well, it could have been a lot worse...









like rube's post, for example...