Saluting fallen hero

US leaders gather to eulogise McCain’s life and rebuke Trump

JOHN McCain’s daughter and two former presidents led a public rebuke of President Donald Trump’s divisive politics at the late senator’s memorial service Saturday in a call for a return to civility.

The nearly three-hour service at the Washington National Cathedral was a show of defiance against a president Mr McCain openly defied in life as the antithesis of the US spirit of service to something greater than any individual.

Standing near Mr McCain’s flag-draped casket and with Mr Trump’s daughter in the audience, Meghan McCain delivered a broadside against the uninvited president.

“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 lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” she said.

“The America of John McCain,” she added, with a reference to Trump’s trademark phrase, “has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”

Mr Trump chose to head to his Virginia golf course during Saturday’s service and tweeted his grievances against the FBI and NAFTA during the day.

Mr McCain asked Barack Obama, a Democrat, and George W. Bush, a Republican, to speak at his memorial service.

The former presidents gave personal testimony that overcoming rivalries and partisan politics was not only possible but good for the country.

“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,” Mr Obama said.

“It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear.

“John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.”