Tributes for ‘man of deep conviction’ McCain

WASHINGTON: Presidents and lawmakers from both parties honoured Senator John McCain’s decades of service to his country in the hours after his death on Saturday.

US President Donald Trump, who once criticised McCain for being taken prisoner during the Vietnam War, said his “deepest sympathies and respect” went out to McCain’s family.

McCain, 81, died at his ranch in Arizona after a year-long battle with brain cancer. On Saturday night, a black hearse accompanied by a police motorcade could be seen driving away from the ranch near Sedona, where the Republican senator spent his final weeks.

Trump’s brief Twitter statement said “hearts and prayers” are with the McCain family. First lady Melania Trump thanked McCain for his service to the nation, which included more than five years as a prisoner of war and six terms in the Senate.

Trump and McCain were at odds until the end. The president, who mocked McCain’s capture in Vietnam during the 2016 campaign, jabbed at the senator even after his illness for voting against Republican efforts to roll back President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Earlier last month, McCain issued a blistering statement criticising Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Former presidents, including those who blocked McCain’s own White House ambitions, offered emotional tributes.

Obama, who triumphed over McCain in the 2008 election, said that despite their differences, McCain and he shared a “fidelity to something higher – the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed”. Obama said the two political opponents “saw our political battles, even, as a privilege, something noble, an opportunity to serve as stewards of those high ideals at home, and to advance them around the world”.

Former President George W Bush, who defeated McCain for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, called his one-time political rival “a man of deep conviction and a patriot of the highest order” and a “friend whom I’ll deeply miss”.

McCain was the son and grandson of admirals and followed them to the US Naval Academy.

A pilot, he was shot down over Vietnam and held as a prisoner of war for more than five years.

He went on to win a seat in the House and, in 1986, the Senate, where he served for the rest of his life. – AP/African News Agency (ANA)