Emotional tributes and implicit rebukes

McCain remembered with emotional tributes and implicit rebukes of Trump

Sen. John McCain's daughter mourns 'the passing of American greatness' at service marking the Arizonan's extraordinary life. But the memorial's tone angers some Trump allies.

By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL

The memorial of Sen. John McCain doubled as a remembrance of the Arizona Republican and a rebuke of President Donald Trump, whom speakers implicitly cast as everything the late senator was not.

On a day when Washington politicians tried to put partisanship aside to commemorate McCain, the contrast between the 2008 GOP presidential nominee and the party’s newest standard-bearer was evident.

McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain delivered the sharpest reproach of the president in an emotional address that preceded a series of speeches from some of the nation’s biggest names, including former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Though White House senior advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner attended Saturday’s service inside Washington National Cathedral, the president himself was not welcome. Nor were his politics.

“I am here before you today saying the words I have never wanted to say, giving the speech I have never wanted to give, feeling the loss I have never wanted to feel,” Meghan McCain began, sniffling as she prepared to say her next words. “My father is gone.”

Meghan McCain acknowledged the many titles and roles that have preceded her father’s name: Navy sailor, aviator, prisoner of war, war hero, congressman, senator and Republican presidential nominee. But she said they pale in comparison to his role as a loving father who was truly great.

“We gather 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 live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” she said, making an unmistakable comparison to the sitting president, a man who mocked her father’s capture despite receiving four medical deferments while in college to avoid service.

Without mentioning the president by name, Meghan McCain contrasted Trump’s America with that of her father’s, a welcoming nation that meets its responsibilities and speaks quietly because it's strong.

John McCain’s “America does not boast because she has no need to,” she said. “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great.”

The line drew sustained applause from within the cathedral, including from many service members in uniform.

Meghan McCain’s remarks represented by far the most extraordinary rebuke of Trump on Saturday. But tributes from other speakers, from Bush to Obama to former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), all decried the president’s politics.

The tone of the memorial angered some of the president’s allies, according to two sources close to the White House. After weathering a week of criticism for how Trump handled McCain’s passing, Meghan McCain’s eulogy was the last straw, the sources said.

While Trump allies often quietly hope the president tones down his Twitter commentary, Saturday was different. Some said they wished Trump would erupt online because they found the service and week of remembrances unfair to the president. These allies also noted that McCain played a key role in passing along a dossier to the FBI that detailed alleged ties between Trump and Russia. And they groused about Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s presence at a service that portrayed the president in such a negative light.

At the service, Bush remembered McCain, whom he defeated in the 2000 Republican presidential primary, as more than anything “a man with a code” who lived by virtues that brought strength and purpose to his life and his country.

“He was honest, no matter whom it offended. Presidents were not spared,” Bush recalled. “He was honorable, always recognizing that his opponents were still patriots and human beings. He loved freedom with the passion of a man who knew its absence. He respected the dignity inherent in every life, a dignity that does not stop at borders and cannot be erased by dictators.”

“Perhaps above all,” Bush continued, “John detested the abuse of power, could not abide bigots and swaggering despots. There was something deep inside him that made him stand up for the little guy, to speak for forgotten people in forgotten places.”

Obama recalled meeting privately with McCain at the White House on several occasions. Yes, they disagreed, he said, but they also laughed with and learned from each other.

“So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse, can seem small and mean and petty. Trafficking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage, it’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born of fear,” Obama said. “John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.”

Obama argued that McCain understood that what makes America great isn’t based on looks, surnames or where parents or grandparents came from or how recently they made it to America. And he described his 2008 opponent as a champion of a free and independent press who “believed in honest argument and hearing other views.”

“He understood that if we get in the habit of bending the truth to suit political expediency or party orthodoxy, our democracy will not work,” Obama said. “That’s why he was willing to buck his own party at times.”

As the Senate debates how best to honor its former colleague, Obama advised Americans to pay tribute by following the example McCain set. “That’s perhaps how we honor him best, by recognizing that there are some things bigger than party or ambition or money or fame or power, that there are some things that are worth risking everything for: principles that are eternal, truths that are abiding,” he said. “At his best, John showed us what that means.”

McCain’s casket, draped in an American flag, lay in front of the dais at the center of the packed cathedral, where a choir led the congregation in the singing of hymns between tributes and other readings.

The casket arrived at the cathedral earlier Saturday morning, as family, friends, current and former government officials and international leaders filled in to pay tribute to the Arizona Republican before he is laid to rest on Sunday.

McCain’s widow, Cindy, laid a wreath at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for her husband, who was captured and held as a prisoner of war, before the funeral.

Saturday’s service was the most high-profile event in a weeklong series commemorating McCain’s storied life.

The senator lay in state in the Arizona Capitol on Wednesday and the U.S. Capitol on Friday. A memorial service was held in between at the North Phoenix Baptist Church on Thursday, featuring tributes from former Vice President Joe Biden and Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald.

Saturday’s memorial service also featured tributes from Lieberman and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Power players from both parties, including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney were also in attendance.

Additional attendees included Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, White House chief of staff John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton.

Trump, who spent Saturday morning tweeting from the White House before traveling to his golf club in Virginia, wasn’t invited to any of McCain’s services this week. As many Washington officials prepared for the ceremony, the president tweeted about alleged corruption within his Justice Department and FBI and further alienated Canada while he slammed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal,” the president wrote on Twitter as Kissinger was speaking. “If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off...”

“We make new deal or go back to pre-NAFTA!” he threatened before his arrival at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia.

Members of Congress, the president’s apparent target audience, likely ignored the post as many of them sat inside the cathedral to honor their former colleague.

McCain discontinued treatment from brain cancer Aug. 24 and died Aug. 25. He was 81.

“Some lives are so vivid, it’s difficult to imagine them ended. Some voices are so vibrant and distinctive, it’s hard to think of them stilled,” Bush said in his eulogy. “A man who seldom rested is laid to rest. And his absence is tangible, like the silence after a mighty roar.”