I have nothing but the height of respect for John McCain, and I think he would have been the best president the United States never had. To me, he represents everything that is right in American politics — it’s just too bad that there’s so much wrong, particularly so today.
But my respect for the senior senator for Arizona has little to do with his political views, it stems from his five-and-a-half years spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, his courage, his frailty, his humanity. For me, he’s the true all-American hero.
Not for one moment do I believe that there was any justification for the Vietnam war and the US belief in supporting a corrupt South Vietnamese regime, but it happened. And McCain did his duty and flew bombing missions over the North. In October 1967, his F4 Skyhawk warplane was shot down and he ditched into Lake Truc Bach in central Hanoi, pretty much the heart of the viper’s nest. He broke both arms and a leg, was entangled in his parachute and was pulled from the water by Vietnamese civilians — then beaten on shore. And that was just the beginning of his woes. For the duration of his captivity, he was kept in a dark cell that measured 1.8 by 0.9 metres with nothing more than a straw mat. For two years in solitary confinement, his only communication with anyone was being able to tap out one letter at a time with another American who was held in the next cell.
In his autobiography, McCain admits to reaching breaking point and twice he tried to hang himself. Admitting that takes courage, and McCain has courage by the bucket. Twice he tried to use his shirt as a noose, and twice his guards caught him, cut him down and beat him to a pulp
“I couldn’t control my despair,” McCain wrote. “All my pride was lost, and I doubted I would ever stand up to any man again. Nothing could save me.”
He even wrote to his wife Carol, urging her to divorce him because he never felt he would get out of the cell alive.
And for me, perhaps the most galling moment in the entire protracted Republican nomination campaign of 2016 came when Donald Trump belittled McCain’s epic incarceration and endurance, noting that “heroes don’t get caught”.
For me, there’s a difference between making America great and the making of a great American.
For all that he endured imprisoned in “the Hanoi Hilton”, McCain never lost his humanity nor his capacity to forgive, and when he returned to the infamous prison in 2000, he simply wrote in the guest book: “Best Wishes”.
Today, McCain needs our best wishes.
McCain’s office has revealed that the 80-year old had been diagnosed with a form of brain cancer. The glioblastoma was discovered while the senator was undergoing minor surgery for a blood clot above his left eye. The news drew a wave of support from across the political spectrum, and raised questions about how long McCain would be absent from the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow majority and are eager to notch up some legislative successes for President Trump.
“I greatly appreciate the outpouring of support — unfortunately for my sparring partners in Congress, I’ll be back soon, so stand-by!” McCain wrote on Twitter. Yep, he was indeed soon back, speaking in the Senate that next day, skewering partisan politics and eviscerating members from both sides for their failure to work together to get things done for Americans. That’s true grit and true fighting spirit.
McCain, who ran a failed White House race in 2008 against Barack Obama, won a sixth six-year term in the Senate last November. On hearing the news that McCain faces the greatest fight of his life now, Obama noted: “Cancer doesn’t know what it’s up against.”
Known in Washington for his doggedness and common-sense conservatism, he is also the main voice for Republicans in speaking out against Trump, a Washington neophyte and political outsider whose populist views have subsumed the party’s broader interests
The son of an admiral, McCain could have been released earlier, but he refused to be bumped up over other comrades, and wasn’t released until 1973, He stayed in the armed forces, ultimately acting as naval liaison to the Senate until his retirement in 1981.
It was at this point that he moved to Arizona to embark on a political career, winning a congressional seat in 1982 and securing a Senate seat four years later.
Running against George W. Bush for the 2000 presidential nomination, McCain’s direct style won him initial support and he secured a surprise victory in the New Hampshire primary.
But he was hit by a number of attacks as campaigning turned increasingly negative, and later fell out with influential members of the so-called “religious right”. The choice of Christian conservative Sarah Palin as running mate for his 2008 presidential campaign was designed to win over such Republicans.
McCain has never been afraid to adopt a controversial position — especially since Trump’s emergence in politics. Though he has since hardened some of his views, he has previously attracted the ire of social conservatives for his relatively moderate views on civil unions, abortion and immigration reform. He was one of the Iraq war’s strongest supporters, and backed the troop increase there known as the “surge”.
As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee he has been a vocal — and hawkish— force in foreign policy and military affairs.
While battling Obama for the White House, McCain stressed his own experience in these areas and argued that he would make a far better commander-in-chief.
The Arizona Senator has repeatedly criticised Trump’s warming relations with Russia, and spent New Year’s Eve 2016 with Ukrainian Marines. “We stand w/them in their fight against #Putin’s aggression,” he had tweeted then.
McCain withdrew his support for Trump — then his party’s presidential nominee — in October 2016, the day after a 2005 recording emerged of Trump making obscene remarks about women and appearing to trivialise sexual assault. He said: “When Mr Trump attacks women and demeans the women in our nation and in our society, that is a point where I just have to part company.”
It’ll be a sad day indeed when we have to part company with him.
— With inputs from Reuters
