Meghan McCain says father’s “America was always great”
USA - Senator John McCain’s funeral Saturday had the feel and gravity of the memorial for a head of state as three former presidents and a who’s who of Washington and the world gathered at the National Cathedral for his service. Family and friends, political rivals and allies, recalled McCain’s remarkable life and commitment to public service. They also noted the coarse nature of today’s political debate and contrasted that to how McCain relished a good fight but stood for more. Yet it was his daughter Meghan who addressed the elephant not in the church, President Donald Trump, who had not been invited. She took a direct jab at Trump and his campaign motto without repeating it. “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great”, she said. In Meghan McCain’s eulogy, she also noted his breeding as son and grandson of admirals, accomplishments across the world and tenderness as a father despite his tribulations. “My father had every reason to think the world was an awful place. My father had every reason to think the world was worth leaving”, she said. “He did not think those things.” She also fiercely spoke on behalf of his legacy. “We gather here 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. “He was a great fire who burned bright. In the past few days my family and I have heard from so many of those Americans who stood in the warmth and light of his fire.” Former President Barack Obama, who defeated McCain for the presidency in 2008, called the opportunity to remember him a ‘precious and singular honor’. “We come to celebrate an extraordinary man, a warrior, a statesman, a patriot, who embodied so much that is best in America”, Obama said. Obama referred to the nature of today’s political debate and suggested that it was unworthy of McCain. “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”, Obama said. “It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born of fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.” (USA Today)