Biden praises his friend’s ageless values in tribute in Phoenix
In a tribute Thursday that capped days of mourning in Arizona for John McCain, former Vice President Joe Biden said the senator exemplified values that will endure his passing.
Eulogizing his friend, with whom he traveled the world and on whom he leaned in times of personal pain, Biden spoke of the “McCain code,” values that he forged during his days in the Navy and that he lived every day afterward.
His voice rising inside the cavernous North Phoenix Baptist Church, Biden rejected the notion that McCain reflects the end of an era.
“Things have changed so much in
America. They look at him as if John came from another age because he lived by a different code, an ancient, antiquated code where honor, courage, character, integrity, duty mattered,” Biden said.
“The truth is John’s code was ageless, is ageless. It wasn’t about politics with John. You could disagree on substance,” Biden said. “It was about the underlying values that animated everything John did.”
McCain’s funeral drew 24 members of the U.S. Senate and more than 3,000 others whose lives he touched.
Biden spoke not just as a Washington colleague but as someone who lost a loved one to cancer. Biden’s son Beau died in 2015 at age 46 of a brain cancer similar to McCain’s.
“For that, there is no balm but time,” he told MCain’s family. “Time and your memories of a life lived well, lived fully.”
It was the final public goodbye to Arizona for McCain, who died Saturday at age 81.
The service began with McCain’s daughter Bridget reading verses from Ecclesiastes: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, a time to die.”
Former state Attorney General Grant Woods, a former chief of staff to McCain, talked about his time working with him.
“If John McCain fell in love with Arizona, Arizona fell in love with John McCain. We ran a lot of races here, a lot of elections. We never lost,” Woods said.
He said McCain was a principled fighter for underdogs and for his country. “He was resolute. He was courageous every step of the way,” Woods said.
McCain will lie in state Friday at the U.S. Capitol, only the 31st person to be so honored in 166 years.