Senator McCain is discontinuing cancer treatments /Senator McCain Passed RIP

[RainbowSky]

4 hours ago, Briefly said:

The Forrestal fire happened on my sister's birthday that year.  I'm not sure exactly when the families of the men on the ship was notified or it if was on the news, but I do remember a day of my parents acting very odd.  I was about 8 at the time and my parents did not talk about it to us then.  They probably didn't want to worry us.  But later I realized that what I was seeing in them was fear for the life of their eldest child.

 

The idiot in office is likely to take that as a challenge.  There is no telling how low he will go.

I sincerely hope that he stays away from the funeral.  It's probably too much to hope for that he will keep his ignorant mouth shut.

Obama's statement was very classy and a perfect example of what a statement of condolence should be.  But then he has more class in his little finger than what the idiot in office has.

I have not had a chance to talk to my brother yet to see what he says.  I'm sure it will be positive towards McCain.

When the person who knows their funeral is upcoming makes it known that you aren't invited, probably you shouldn't even bother. Even if he was invited (Obama is doing a eulogy!)  he probably wouldn't show anyways.

Edited August 26, 2018 by RainbowSky

[WiseGirl]

4 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

I'm very grateful to see that Barack Obama and George W. Bush will be eulogizing McCain

I'm very grateful because it drastically increases the probability that he-who-shall-not-be-named in the presence of a patriotic war hero will not attend.

Seriously what asshole offers condolences and has his own image on the condolences? Oh right, nevermind. 

[violynn]

I am sat here reading over the political people in America are all saying about John McCain and the words that keep echoing over and over are Patriot, Passionate, Bi-partisan, Maverick.  I see all this outpouring of obvious grief, and I am old enough to remember both times Senator McCain ran for president, and how amazed I was by how much I really liked and admired this dang Republican, being Blue through and through.  Then there's the time he told a Town Hall Meeting that Obama was a good man...

Spoiler

 

And then there's the pathetic excuse for a President we have.., even if we disregarded 75% of what that abomination does, looking at John McCain and his life, public and private, and I just truly weep.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[Snowless]

When the news first broke of Senator McCain’s death, one of the first things I messaged my friend (who is much further to the left of me politically; he’s a Bernie-type democratic socialist while I consider myself just a straight up liberal) was, “He was one of the few Republicans left in Congress who still had some semblance of a backbone.”  He was a portrait in courage surviving all those years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and in his later years showed class and dignity when his party was losing all sense of both.  He was also an outspoken opponent of the use of torture (having survived it himself) when the use of water boarding came to light.

The words pouring in from both sides of the aisle go to show how respected he was as a statesman, even if people didn’t always agree with him.

There was also one other thing I noticed, and it may give you a giggle:

Bob Dole is still alive?!

[GreyhoundFan]

19 minutes ago, Snowless said:

There was also one other thing I noticed, and it may give you a giggle:

Bob Dole is still alive?!

The WaPo did a lovely article about 94 year old Dole recently. He's another one with whom I disagreed politically, but have always respected as a person. "Bob Dole’s final mission"

Spoiler

Each Saturday, before Bob Dole sets off on his latest vocation, he has cornflakes, a little sugar on top, and a bottle of chocolate Boost.

It takes less time to get dressed now that the 94-year-old finally allows a nurse to help him, but it remains a rough half-hour on a body racked by injury and age. The blue oxford has to be maneuvered over the dead right arm and the shoulder that was blown away on an Italian hillside. The pressed khakis over the scarred thigh. A pair of North Face running shoes, the likes of which his artillery-blasted hands have been unable to tie since 1945.

Then comes the hard part — getting there. On this particular June Saturday, the Lincoln Town Car with the Kansas plates is unavailable, so Nathanial Lohn, the former Army medic who serves as Dole’s nurse, helps the nonagenarian into Lohn’s Honda Insight. It’s tight, but good enough for the 20-minute drive to a monument the former senator all but built himself.

There, from a handicapped parking spot, he eases into the wheelchair as the greetings begin — “Oh my gosh, Bob Dole!”— finally rolling into his place in the shade just outside the main entrance to the National World War II Memorial.

And then they come, bus after bus, wheelchair after wheelchair, battalions of his bent brothers, stooped with years but steeped in pride, veterans coming to see their country’s monument to their sacrifice and to be welcomed by of one of their country’s icons.

“Good to see you. Where you from?” Dole says, over and over, as they roll close, sometimes one on each side. New York, Tennessee, Nevada, the old roll-call once again. “Let’s get a picture.” “Thank you for your service.” “What about your service?” “How old are you?” “I’m 90.” “I’m 94.” “Where you from?” “Good to see you.”

He’ll do it for more than three hours on this muggy day, more than six hours on others, staying until the last veteran has gone on by to see the grand columns and fountains behind him. They pump his left hand — the one with some numb feeling left — and squeeze his shoulders, and sometimes he gets home not just tired but gently battered by humanity and humidity alike.

“Physically, it takes a toll,” Lohn says, watching his charge from a few feet away with a waiting bottle of water. “I may find five new bruises on him tonight. But he won’t miss it.”

Dole has been coming for years — weather and his health permitting — to greet these groups of aging veterans, brought at no cost from throughout the country by the nonprofit Honor Flight Network. As the many missions of a mission-driven life have faded into history — combat hero, champion for the disabled, Senate majority leader, 1996 Republican presidential candidate — this final calling has remained, down to just Saturdays, sometimes derailed by the doctors, but still a duty to be fulfilled.

“It’s just about the one public service left that I’m doing,” he says. “We don’t have many of the World War II vets left. It’s important to me.”

But it’s important for him, too. He seems to get more energized with each encounter, frail in his chair but his still-bright eyes locking in on the next old tail gunner or rifleman or supply corps clerk trundling toward him.

“I tell them it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what war you served in, whether you were wounded or not wounded,” Dole says. “We’re all in this together.”

He has watched the proportion of World War II veterans fall over the years, from half the bus to just a few per group, the sun setting on the generation that saved the world. “I just met a fellow who was 103 years old,” he says. “Sometimes I’m the kid.”

Maybe it keeps him young, these Saturdays in the shade of history and heroism. Lohn thinks they do, with this year a vast improvement over 2017, when serious health problems kept Dole grounded for months. Dole’s wife, former senator Elizabeth Dole, says her husband is wired to serve.

She joins him frequently on the Saturday outings, helping to direct the receiving line, sharing the tears, doubling the number of Senator Doles in the pictures and stories visitors take home.

“It’s great, all these tremendous men and women,” she says. “Bob has a goal. He wants to make a positive difference in one person’s life every day.”

One Saturday this month, it was Willis Castille, who walked into a Navy recruiting station when he was 15 and spent six years at Saipan, Iwo Jima and other Pacific hot spots. A lot of years in steel mills and auto factories have passed since, and the 90-year-old wasn’t so sure he was up to a one-day flying visit just to see some fountains. (“Hate airplanes. Would rather come by ship.”)

At his home in Indian Mound, Tenn., he keeps an article about Bob Dole, detailing how the Kansan was struck by a shell while aiding a radioman in Italy’s Po Valley. He earned the Bronze Star for valor and was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries that hospitalized him for 2½ years. Sitting in a wheelchair just outside the memorial, Castille found a story more moving than any marble wall.

“He made this worthwhile,” Castille said after his chat with Dole, the senator’s injured hand resting on Castille’s arm while they talked of age and life and the Navy. “The only person I’d rather meet is [Fleet Adm.] Chester Nimitz. But he’s dead.”

Some give Dole military “challenge coins,” which Lohn puts in his backpack to be stored — or displayed — in the Watergate apartment where the Doles have lived for more than 40 years. Mostly they just swap niceties. “I’m 95. I’ve got you beat,” one says, before his escort leans down to correct him. “Oh, I’m 94. We’re both 94.”

“Let’s get a picture,” Dole says.

“I voted for you,” say more than one. A Korean War vet from Nevada asks Dole his opinion of that state’s Republican senator, Dean Heller.

“I think he’s all right” is all Dole will say, still the laconic Midwesterner and practiced pol.

He prefers to leave the politics outside this shrine to national unity, where “E Pluribus Unum” is carved in a nearby wall. But one tourist asks about President Trump, whom Dole endorsed when he clinched the Republican nomination. “What about all the tweeting?” she asks.

“I thought tweeting was for birds,” Dole says. “But he loves it, and he’s not going to quit.”

Even two hours in, Dole perks up at the passing of any dog or a pretty woman, asking their names (the dogs), leaning up for a peck on the cheek (the women).

“Oh, you want a kiss,” cries Lisa Velez, a middle school teacher escorting a student group from San Clemente, Calif. “Oh, another one? You’re delightful. Thank you, Senator!”

He says he has more fun when his wife doesn’t come with him.

“That’s okay,” Elizabeth Dole says. “When I’m there, I’m hugging and kissing all the men coming through.”

These outings are the highlight of his week, she says. They make it to brunch many Sundays, the Hay-Adams or the Palm. During the week, while she’s busy with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, which supports military caregivers, he may go into his office at Alston & Bird, an international law firm, for a few hours. Until recently, he was raising money for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, just as he led the campaign that raised more than $170 million for the World War II Memorial, which opened in 2004.

But if his dialing-for-dollar days are largely over, his duty post at the grand marble pond he had built on the Mall endures.

“I sort of have a proprietary interest in the place,” says retired 2nd Lt. Dole of the 10th Mountain Division. “It’s another opportunity to say thank you.”

 

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The WaPo did a lovely article about 94 year old Dole recently. He's another one with whom I disagreed politically, but have always respected as a person. "Bob Dole’s final mission"

  Reveal hidden contents

Each Saturday, before Bob Dole sets off on his latest vocation, he has cornflakes, a little sugar on top, and a bottle of chocolate Boost.

It takes less time to get dressed now that the 94-year-old finally allows a nurse to help him, but it remains a rough half-hour on a body racked by injury and age. The blue oxford has to be maneuvered over the dead right arm and the shoulder that was blown away on an Italian hillside. The pressed khakis over the scarred thigh. A pair of North Face running shoes, the likes of which his artillery-blasted hands have been unable to tie since 1945.

Then comes the hard part — getting there. On this particular June Saturday, the Lincoln Town Car with the Kansas plates is unavailable, so Nathanial Lohn, the former Army medic who serves as Dole’s nurse, helps the nonagenarian into Lohn’s Honda Insight. It’s tight, but good enough for the 20-minute drive to a monument the former senator all but built himself.

There, from a handicapped parking spot, he eases into the wheelchair as the greetings begin — “Oh my gosh, Bob Dole!”— finally rolling into his place in the shade just outside the main entrance to the National World War II Memorial.

And then they come, bus after bus, wheelchair after wheelchair, battalions of his bent brothers, stooped with years but steeped in pride, veterans coming to see their country’s monument to their sacrifice and to be welcomed by of one of their country’s icons.

“Good to see you. Where you from?” Dole says, over and over, as they roll close, sometimes one on each side. New York, Tennessee, Nevada, the old roll-call once again. “Let’s get a picture.” “Thank you for your service.” “What about your service?” “How old are you?” “I’m 90.” “I’m 94.” “Where you from?” “Good to see you.”

He’ll do it for more than three hours on this muggy day, more than six hours on others, staying until the last veteran has gone on by to see the grand columns and fountains behind him. They pump his left hand — the one with some numb feeling left — and squeeze his shoulders, and sometimes he gets home not just tired but gently battered by humanity and humidity alike.

“Physically, it takes a toll,” Lohn says, watching his charge from a few feet away with a waiting bottle of water. “I may find five new bruises on him tonight. But he won’t miss it.”

Dole has been coming for years — weather and his health permitting — to greet these groups of aging veterans, brought at no cost from throughout the country by the nonprofit Honor Flight Network. As the many missions of a mission-driven life have faded into history — combat hero, champion for the disabled, Senate majority leader, 1996 Republican presidential candidate — this final calling has remained, down to just Saturdays, sometimes derailed by the doctors, but still a duty to be fulfilled.

“It’s just about the one public service left that I’m doing,” he says. “We don’t have many of the World War II vets left. It’s important to me.”

But it’s important for him, too. He seems to get more energized with each encounter, frail in his chair but his still-bright eyes locking in on the next old tail gunner or rifleman or supply corps clerk trundling toward him.

“I tell them it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what war you served in, whether you were wounded or not wounded,” Dole says. “We’re all in this together.”

He has watched the proportion of World War II veterans fall over the years, from half the bus to just a few per group, the sun setting on the generation that saved the world. “I just met a fellow who was 103 years old,” he says. “Sometimes I’m the kid.”

Maybe it keeps him young, these Saturdays in the shade of history and heroism. Lohn thinks they do, with this year a vast improvement over 2017, when serious health problems kept Dole grounded for months. Dole’s wife, former senator Elizabeth Dole, says her husband is wired to serve.

She joins him frequently on the Saturday outings, helping to direct the receiving line, sharing the tears, doubling the number of Senator Doles in the pictures and stories visitors take home.

“It’s great, all these tremendous men and women,” she says. “Bob has a goal. He wants to make a positive difference in one person’s life every day.”

One Saturday this month, it was Willis Castille, who walked into a Navy recruiting station when he was 15 and spent six years at Saipan, Iwo Jima and other Pacific hot spots. A lot of years in steel mills and auto factories have passed since, and the 90-year-old wasn’t so sure he was up to a one-day flying visit just to see some fountains. (“Hate airplanes. Would rather come by ship.”)

At his home in Indian Mound, Tenn., he keeps an article about Bob Dole, detailing how the Kansan was struck by a shell while aiding a radioman in Italy’s Po Valley. He earned the Bronze Star for valor and was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries that hospitalized him for 2½ years. Sitting in a wheelchair just outside the memorial, Castille found a story more moving than any marble wall.

“He made this worthwhile,” Castille said after his chat with Dole, the senator’s injured hand resting on Castille’s arm while they talked of age and life and the Navy. “The only person I’d rather meet is [Fleet Adm.] Chester Nimitz. But he’s dead.”

Some give Dole military “challenge coins,” which Lohn puts in his backpack to be stored — or displayed — in the Watergate apartment where the Doles have lived for more than 40 years. Mostly they just swap niceties. “I’m 95. I’ve got you beat,” one says, before his escort leans down to correct him. “Oh, I’m 94. We’re both 94.”

“Let’s get a picture,” Dole says.

“I voted for you,” say more than one. A Korean War vet from Nevada asks Dole his opinion of that state’s Republican senator, Dean Heller.

“I think he’s all right” is all Dole will say, still the laconic Midwesterner and practiced pol.

He prefers to leave the politics outside this shrine to national unity, where “E Pluribus Unum” is carved in a nearby wall. But one tourist asks about President Trump, whom Dole endorsed when he clinched the Republican nomination. “What about all the tweeting?” she asks.

“I thought tweeting was for birds,” Dole says. “But he loves it, and he’s not going to quit.”

Even two hours in, Dole perks up at the passing of any dog or a pretty woman, asking their names (the dogs), leaning up for a peck on the cheek (the women).

“Oh, you want a kiss,” cries Lisa Velez, a middle school teacher escorting a student group from San Clemente, Calif. “Oh, another one? You’re delightful. Thank you, Senator!”

He says he has more fun when his wife doesn’t come with him.

“That’s okay,” Elizabeth Dole says. “When I’m there, I’m hugging and kissing all the men coming through.”

These outings are the highlight of his week, she says. They make it to brunch many Sundays, the Hay-Adams or the Palm. During the week, while she’s busy with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, which supports military caregivers, he may go into his office at Alston & Bird, an international law firm, for a few hours. Until recently, he was raising money for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, just as he led the campaign that raised more than $170 million for the World War II Memorial, which opened in 2004.

But if his dialing-for-dollar days are largely over, his duty post at the grand marble pond he had built on the Mall endures.

“I sort of have a proprietary interest in the place,” says retired 2nd Lt. Dole of the 10th Mountain Division. “It’s another opportunity to say thank you.”

 

His memoir, One Soldier's Story is an excellent read as well. He's another Republican I can admire for his service, even though I didn't agree with his politics.

[MarblesMom]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Dole has been coming for years — weather and his health permitting — to greet these groups of aging veterans, brought at no cost from throughout the country by the nonprofit Honor Flight Network.

I cannot say enough about the Honor Flight Network.  Such a great program!  Mr MM's beloved uncle was able to go a few years ago, and it was awesome for him.

So sad how few of the WW2 vets are still around.

Good onya, Bob Dole, for still getting out there

[fraurosena]

This is so egregious that it's headline news over here too.

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

This is so egregious that it's headline news over here too.

 

McCain dies and doesn't get a single word of praise. Manafort gets convicted and he's a good man framed by a witch hunt. How this doesn't make every single American head explode with rage is a mystery to me.

[Rosalie]

I must say that even though I disagreed with most of Senator McCain’s political views, I really liked the way he did politics. He went for the ball, not for the player, and showed so much respect for his opponents. That kind of politicians are rare to find these days.

Rest in Peace.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Rosalie

[fraurosena]

The presidunce is so caught up in his childish and petty revenge that he doesn't understand how badly it reflects on him.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

FFS, even McCain's former captor had some nice things to say about him https://www.thedailybeast.com/one-of-john-mccains-former-captors-sends-condolences-from-vietnam

[nausicaa]

Of all the things I'm shocked about what Trump supporters are willing to overlook, the denigration of POWs and veterans still stuns me the most (the new love for Russia is a close second). 

I can understand both Republicans and Democrats having personal and political criticisms of McCain , but John McCain's military record is absolutely fucking unassailable. And I am saying this as someone who is quite tired of our blind military jingoism. Read "A Weasel, Twelve Monkeys, and a Shrub" and tell me it doesn't stir something in you.

I never would have believed that that sort of military service was up for sacrifice to the engines of racism and xenophobia.

Edited August 27, 2018 by nausicaa

[nausicaa]

On 8/25/2018 at 5:11 PM, apple1 said:

Trump is not fit to lick McCain's boots.

Trump is not even fit to lick Richard fucking Nixon's boots

(Who served as a naval lieutenant in WWII, even though he could have been exempted from service as a birthright Quaker. He also could have sought deferment as a government employee. Instead he specifically requested a more dangerous combat position and was well-liked by his soldiers and received both a commendation letter and medal for his exemplary service. Richard.Milhous.Nixon. My how far we've fallen.)

 

I've never been one for emotional "The other side is evil!" politics, and while I am liberal on most topics, I always prided (and comforted) myself on the fact that I could give a five to ten minute presentation extolling the merits of every major Republican candidate for the past 75 years. It was a fun intellectual exercise. Reagan, H.W., Dole, McCain, Romney, hell even George W. Bush was self-deprecating and a good father. Nixon was smart, hard working,  and self-made. 

November 9, 2016 broke my streak...

[AmazonGrace]

 

[catlady]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The presidunce is so caught up in his childish and petty revenge that he doesn't understand how badly it reflects on him.

 

when i heard this on the news this morning, it made me genuinely angry.   

[fraurosena]

Striking indeed. It strikes at the heart of America, and what it once stood for. How many more strikes is America willing to endure before it cries "Enough!"?

[fraurosena]

His body-language says it all. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[Mela99]

Anybody else remember when Obama "didn't put on the Whitehouse lights" for police officers but did for the shooting of LGTBQ persons and the right was foaming at the mouth mad?

Spit on John McCain... And there is silence.

What is the freaking line here? When is enough enough?

Is he going to have to take a shit on someone's grave dressed as Hitler for there to be someone who cares?

Did ANYONE from the right legitimately call him out?

[RainbowSky]

On the other hand, I do have this to say. Instead of launching into a rant about how being caught makes McCain a non hero, at least he's just not commenting and looking like a giant douche for not being nice. Someone got it through his head that STFU and "if you dont have something nice to say..."over some things apparently.he obviously has nothing nice TO say.

Now to get his phone away and get him to stop looking like a 2yo who doesn't want the Brussels sprouts saying "No!"...

Edited August 27, 2018 by RainbowSky

[GreyhoundFan]

The WaPo published this excellent piece about McCain: "The Daily 202: What John McCain learned from his Democratic mentor"

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: Glossed over in the torrent of tributes to John McCain since his death Saturday are the five years he spent as the Navy’s liaison to the Senate. His tour of duty as a uniformed officer on Capitol Hill in the late 1970s and early 1980s was nearly as long as his imprisonment at the Hanoi Hilton. The experience taught McCain valuable lessons and forged relationships that made him an effective lawmaker over 36 years.

He made fast friends with young senators like Joe Biden, Gary Hart and Bill Cohen. He ingratiated himself with John Tower by smuggling liquor into Middle Eastern countries where alcohol was banned during CODELs. He even met the woman who would become his second wife, Cindy, while shepherding a congressional delegation through Honolulu on the way to China.

Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.) became a key mentor during this period, indelibly shaping McCain’s worldview and approach to governing. First elected to Congress in 1940, Jackson was a bridge to an era very different from our own. John F. Kennedy considered picking him as his running mate in 1960 before settling on Lyndon Johnson to shore up support in the South. Jackson’s consolation prize was chairing the Democratic National Committee. Like McCain would decades later, Jackson twice sought the presidency — in 1972 and 1976. He was stridently anti-communist, but he was liberal on domestic issues: an environmentalist who championed labor unions and civil rights.

McCain, who died at 81, was in his early 40s when he was the Navy’s point man on the Hill. The two struck up a close bond during long flights to faraway places. Jackson died at 71 in 1983, the year McCain joined the House. He replaced Barry Goldwater and became a senator in his own right in 1987.

Even as he battled brain cancer, McCain still spoke fondly of Jackson as “the model of what an American statesman should be,” invoking him with reverence during impromptu hallway interviews and in speeches. He strove to emulate him as a globe-trotting avatar of American values, willing to take on his own party leaders and go toe-to-toe with presidents.

In “Worth the Fighting For,” McCain identified half a dozen people who inspired him to get into politics. He devoted a full chapter to Jackson. “Although many in his party and mine would fault him for being too stubborn in a world that required subtlety and cunning, he was a hero for our time,” McCain wrote in the 2002 book, which came out halfway through his Senate tenure. “Few presidents can claim to have served the Republic as ably, as faithfully as Scoop Jackson did.”

Jackson taught McCain the impact that a single senator, if he’s savvy and determined, can have on American foreign policy. He emphasized that the Founders intended Congress to be a coequal branch of the government to the executive — a lesson many lawmakers could stand to learn in this age of going along to get along.

McCain, who loved the “maverick” moniker, proved willing to take on party leaders on everything from earmarks to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” from campaign finance reform to cigarettes and from health care to immigration. He did it as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the Commerce Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee.

The old bull also learned from the young captain, who regaled him with now-well-known tales from his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. McCain, the son and grandson of admirals, was not unaccustomed to such rarefied air. But he saw firsthand how Jackson gave hope to the downtrodden by championing human rights as a central aim of American foreign policy.

McCain described Jackson as “the Senate’s great apostle of freedom” in his final book, “The Restless Wave,” which came out in May. He said his mentor rejected the kind of false moral equivalency that was then popular in the Democratic Party but that has recently come into vogue in the GOP thanks to President Trump. McCain believed that the United States won the Cold War by supporting freedom, equal justice and the rule of law.

“We kept the faith, and we prevailed. No one of my acquaintance ever believed in that faith more sincerely, more ardently than Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson,” McCain wrote. “He was a champion for the world’s oppressed and an enemy to those who gained power for themselves by disregarding the humanity of others.”

McCain praised Jackson for complicating the Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger policy of detente with the Soviet Union by insisting that it not come at the expense of America’s commitment to human rights. “Over their objections, he passed legislation that conditioned trade with the Soviets and other autocratic regimes on the relaxion of emigration policies,” McCain wrote. “He was a hero to Soviet Jews wishing to immigrate to Israel.”

In the late 1970s, he escorted Jackson to Israel and could still recall how nearly a thousand refuseniks gathered to welcome them at the airport in Tel Aviv. “They mobbed us, slowing the bus’s progress to a crawl,” McCain recalled in his book. “Scoop and his beloved wife, Helen, were genuinely moved by the outpouring of affection. So was I, recognizing it, as Scoop surely did, as an outpouring of affection for America and our ideals. We don’t always appreciate as we should the value others place on the public statements of American officials. It matters what we say and what we don’t say. The U.S. remains the world’s leading power, and when our leaders speak, government and people take notice.”

He applauded Jackson for being “as much of an irritant to Jimmy Carter’s administration as he had been to Nixon and Gerald Ford.” “Scoop had his convictions, he believed in America’s mission, and when it came to acting on his beliefs, he didn’t particularly give a damn which party was in power.” McCain wrote. “America’s ideals came before party loyalty for him.”

When McCain joined Congress, he thought of Jackson’s example when he voted to override Ronald Reagan’s veto of sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid government. He also presciently opposed Reagan’s deployment of Marines to Beirut before the 1983 barracks bombing.

Like Jackson, McCain could also admit when he was wrong – as he did after the Keating Five scandal that nearly destroyed his political career. He later expressed regret for endorsing the Confederate flag ahead of the South Carolina primary in 2000 for political expediency and apologized for voting against creating a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. He also admitted that the Iraq war “can’t be judged as anything other than a mistake” and accepted his “share of the blame for it.”

In his book this spring, McCain expressed regret that he did not pick Joe Lieberman, who could rightfully be described as the last Scoop Jackson Democrat to serve in the Senate, as his running mate when he was the Republican nominee in 2008. Instead, he tapped Sarah Palin – who lacked any meaningful foreign policy experience. McCain said Jackson taught him the importance of cross-party relationships.

McCain believed the Senate should live up to its goal of being the world’s greatest deliberative body, and he was sad to watch his cherished institution become more like the House, which has historically been both rowdier and more reflexively partisan. In this year’s book, McCain recounted how a House member from Tennessee, whom he did not name, embarrassed an American delegation he was part of during a 2005 meeting with the prime minister of Kyrgyzstan in Bishkek: “Like an Army scout trying to communicate with an Indian chief in a 1950s Western, he spoke slowly and loudly, using his hands to illustrate his message. ‘I come from a state with biiiig mountains,’ he offered. … ‘Kyrgyzstan very beautiful. My state very beautiful.’ To which the prime minister responded nonchalantly and in very good English, ‘Yes, I know. I have a daughter at Vanderbilt.’”

Jackson was a strong believer that supporting human rights meant having uncomfortable conversations even with U.S. allies, and McCain took that to heart when he visited places like Kyrgyzstan. “Our interests will often necessitate dealing with some pretty bad actors, but we shouldn’t pay for the privilege by declining to criticize how they mistreat their people,” McCain wrote. “All these trips, all these speeches, op-eds, press statements, interviews, professing support for Ukrainians and Georgians and Estonians and Montenegrins, condemning [Vladimir] Putin, criticizing my own government. Did it change anything, improve anything? I hope so. But I know for certain it meant something to the people I meant to help because they’ve told me it has. It meant that there were Americans on their side, that we hear them, we acknowledge the justice of their cause, they aren’t forgotten. … It matters. Scoop Jackson taught me that.”

TRUMP’S SNUB:

-- “President Trump nixed issuing a statement that praised the heroism and life of [McCain], telling senior aides he preferred to issue a tweet before posting one Saturday night that did not include any kind words for the late Arizona Republican,” Josh Dawsey reports. “Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and other White House aides advocated for an official statement that gave the decorated Vietnam War POW plaudits for his military and Senate service and called him a ‘hero,’ according to current and former White House aides. … The original statement was drafted before McCain died Saturday, and Sanders and others edited a final version this weekend that was ready for the president. …

“White House aides instead posted statements from officials other than the president praising McCain. By Sunday afternoon, the vice president, secretary of state, homeland security secretary, defense secretary, national security adviser, White House press secretary, counselor to the president, education secretary, interior secretary and others had posted statements. … As tributes poured in, the president who said McCain was ‘not a war hero’ spent much of Sunday at his golf course in Virginia and did not utter a word publicly. In the afternoon, he returned to the White House, where the flags were lowered to half-staff in honor of McCain.

“McCain requested that Bush and Obama deliver eulogies at his funeral, while not inviting Trump. White House aides said it is unclear whether Trump will go to Capitol Hill, where McCain is to lie in state on Friday.

“Trump had repeatedly declined to say anything nice about McCain [even as he lay dying], leaving him out of a speech this month commemorating the signing of a defense-spending bill with the senator’s name on it. … Current and former White House aides said Trump continually said McCain was ‘not a friend’ and was out to undermine the administration’s agenda, quarreling with other aides who were more supportive. He continued to believe that McCain was not a war hero, officials said. …

“McCain’s popularity among Republicans has dropped as Trump has taken over the party. In a recent Fox News poll, 41 percent of Republicans said they had a favorable opinion of McCain, while 60 percent of Democrats shared the view. Trump’s approval is close to 90 percent among Republicans.

“Mark Hertling, a former senior military commander who lauded McCain on Twitter for visiting Mosul during heavy fighting in Iraq, said he was not surprised by Trump’s reaction to McCain’s death. Nineteen months into his presidency, Trump has yet to visit any war zones where American troops are fighting. ‘It was very shallow,’ Hertling said of Trump’s response.”

A LONG GOODBYE:

-- On Wednesday, McCain will lie in state at the Arizona State Capitol.

-- On Thursday, he will be honored at an Arizona memorial service at the North Phoenix Baptist Church at 10 p.m. Pacific. Then his casket will be flown from Goldwater Air National Guard Base to Joint Base Andrews.

-- On Friday, McCain will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol. A formal ceremony will take place in the Rotunda at 11 a.m. Eastern.

-- On Saturday, another memorial service will take place at Washington National Cathedral at 10 a.m. Eastern.

-- On Sunday afternoon, he will be buried after a private memorial service at the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis. He’ll be laid to rest next to his Naval Academy classmate Chuck Larson at a site overlooking the Severn River.

WHO WILL GET THE SEAT?

-- Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey will wait to announce a replacement for McCain until after his body is interred, a spokesman for the governor said Sunday. “State law requires Ducey to appoint someone from McCain’s party to fill the seat. The governor, a Republican who is running for reelection this year, has ruled out naming himself. But he has otherwise remained silent on the decision,” Tory Newmyer reports. “Arizona Republicans have mentioned a lengthy roster of potential successors — a list that includes McCain’s widow, Cindy; Ducey’s chief of staff, Kirk Adams; State Treasurer Eileen Klein; former congressman John Shadegg; and former U.S. senator Jon Kyl. … McCain’s successor is likely to serve until the 2020 general election. … Ducey favors appointing someone who could hold on to the seat, a Republican strategist familiar with the governor’s thinking (said) earlier this year.”

-- More Washington Post team coverage:

Karen Tumulty’s obituary: “McCain, ‘maverick’ of the Senate and former POW, dies at 81.”

Dan Balz’s take: “The passing of John McCain also marks the passing of an era.”

Paul Kane: “McCain was a force of nature in Washington with an unrivaled global stature.”

Karoun Demirjian: “McCain’s death marks a new era for congressional checks on Trump.”

Greg Jaffe: “One moment from McCain’s 2008 run made clear his character and foretold Trump’s rise.”

Ishaan Tharoor: “Trump, McCain and the waning of the ‘liberal order.’ ”

Travis Andrews: “From ‘Wedding Crashers’ to SNL, John McCain was no stranger to pop culture.”

-- WaPo commentary:

The Editorial Board calls McCain “irreplaceable”: “We disagreed with Mr. McCain on various matters over the years, but when we did so, it was more with a sense of disappointment than of anger.”

Max Boot: “McCain leaves the stage when we need him most.”

Josh Rogin: “Keeping up with John McCain.”

David Ignatius column: “McCain understood that the Republican Party was selling its soul. He refused.”

E.J. Dionne Jr.: “McCain and the last of human freedoms.”

Jennifer Rubin: “McCain embodied time-honored virtues.”

Jeff Flake, Arizona’s junior senator: “I am grateful for John McCain.”

Mark Salter, McCain’s co-author and longtime staffer: “McCain spent his life serving the dignity of his fellow man.”

Carter Eskew: “In death, McCain shows an alternative to Trump.”

...