John McCain funeral: Farewells for ‘a great fire who burned bright’
John McCain planned his final farewell with an eye to contrasting his life, values to those of his biggest critic.
John McCain planned his final farewell in Washington today with an eye to contrasting his life and his values to those of his most high profile critic, Donald Trump.
Never did this resonate more loudly than in Washington’s National Cathedral as two former presidents, George W Bush and Barack Obama, led a bipartisan tribute to the 81 year old Republican Senator who died last month of brain cancer.
But the most dramatic moment was a tearful eulogy given by McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain. Without naming Trump she implicitly compared her father, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, to Trump, who once claimed McCain wasn’t a war hero because he got captured.
“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness — the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” McCain said, choking back tears. “He was a great fire who burned bright.”
“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great,” McCain said, sparking applause across the Cathedral packed with Washington’s political elite.
Mr Trump, who sparred with McCain prior to his death and who has steadfastly refused to praise him after he died, was not invited to the service. During the ceremony Trump tweeted about the injustice of the Russia investigation.
In a sharply polarised America, McCain’s four-day farewell, in his native Arizona and in Washington, saw a rare union of Republicans and Democrats coming together to celebrate a remarkable life. But they were also a siren call for a return to the politics of civility and a contrast to the enmity and bitterness currently enveloping Washington.
“We come to celebrate an extraordinary man, a warrior, a statesman a patriot who embodied so much that's best about America,’ said former president Barack Obama, who denied McCain the White House in the 2008 presidential election but was asked to give a eulogy.
Without naming Trump, Obama implicitly contrasted McCain to the president, speaking of McCain’s willingness to work with his opponents to find common ground and rise above “phony controversies and manufactured outrage”.
Obama said McCain’s invitation for him, a political opponent, to speak at his funeral “showed a largeness of spirit and ability to see past difference and search for common ground”.
He spoke of how McCain disdained the “small, mean and petty” state of today’s public discourse and “politics that pretends to be brand and tough but is instead born of fear”.
“He wanted us to be better than that,” Obama said.
And, in another clear reference to Trump, Obama spoke of how McCain also “championed a free and independent press as critical to our national debate”.
Obama said the best honour Americans could give to McCain was to follow the example he set in life.
Former president George W Bush also gave a eulogy in which he said his political rivalry with the six-time Senate and two time failed presidential aspirant melted away as the two forged a close friendship.
“In the process, rivalry melted away. In the end, I got to enjoy one of life’s great gifts, the friendship of John McCain. And I’ll miss it,” Bush said.
“John was, above all, a man with a code. He lived by a set of public virtues that brought strength and purpose to his life and to his country.”
Mourners at Washington’s National Cathedral included former president Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary as well as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Vice Presidents Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Joe Biden and numerous members of Congress from both parties.
The Trump administration was represented by chief of staff John Kelly and by the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.
It ended four days of public commemorations for the much-loved Senator, which saw his coffin lie in state in the Arizona capitol building and also in the US Capitol in Washington. McCain was only the 31st person to be given the honour of lying in state in the US Capitol.
In both Arizona and Washington large crowds of veterans came to pay tribute to the former fighter pilot who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five and a half years and who tirelessly advocated on behalf of the military during his life.
McCain will be buried tomorrow (AEST) at the naval academy in Annapolis Maryland where he trained as a young naval officer.
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia
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