South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Senator, war hero, maverick
Naval aviator, Vietnam POW blazed his own trail in politics
WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain, who faced down his captors in a North Vietnam prisoner of war camp with jut-jawed defiance and later turned his rebellious streak into a 35-year political career that took him to Congress and the Republican presidential nomination, died Saturday after battling brain cancer for more than a year. He was 81.
McCain was a fearless and outspoken voice on policy and politics to the end, unswerving in his defense of democratic values and unflinching in his criticism of his fellow Republican, President Donald Trump. He was elected to the Senate from Arizona six times but twice thwarted in seeking the presidency.
An upstart presidential bid in 2000 didn’t last long. Eight years later, he fought back from the brink of defeat to win the GOP nomination, only to be overpowered by Democrat Barack Obama. McCain chose a little-known Alaska governor as his running mate in that race, and turned Sarah Palin into a national political figure.
After losing to Obama, McCain returned to the Senate determined not to be defined by a failed presidential campaign in which
his reputation as a maverick had faded. In the politics of the moment and in political debate over the decades, McCain advanced his ideas and punched back at critics — Trump among them.
The president acknowledged McCain’s passing with a tweet Saturday night, writing: “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain.”
Obama, McCain’s old rival, released a statement noting that “few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did. But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means.”
The scion of a decorated military family, McCain embraced his role as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, pushing for aggressive U.S. military intervention overseas and eager to contribute to “defeating the forces of radical Islam that want to destroy America.”
Asked how he wanted to be remembered, McCain said simply: “That I made a major contribution to the defense of the nation.”
One dramatic vote he cast in the twilight of his career in 2017 will not soon be forgotten, either: As the decisive “no” on Senate GOP legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, McCain became the unlikely savior of Obama’s trademark legislative achievement.
Taking a long look back in his valedictory memoir, “The Restless Wave,” McCain wrote of the world he inhabited: “I hate to leave it. But I don’t have a complaint. Not one. It’s been quite a ride. I’ve known great passions, seen amazing wonders, fought in a war, and helped make a peace. I made a small place for myself in the story of America and the history of my times.”
Throughout his long tenure in Congress, McCain played his role with trademark verve, at one hearing dismissing a protester by calling out, “Get out of here, you low-life scum.”
But it was just as notable Navy Lt. Cmdr. John McCain is taken to Hanoi's Gia Lam Airport in South Vietnam after his release from captivity.
when he held his sharp tongue, in service of a party or political gain.
Most remarkably, he stuck by Trump as the
party’s 2016 presidential nominee even when Trump questioned his status as a war hero by saying: “I like people who weren’t captured.”
McCain declared the comment offensive to veterans, but urged the men to “put it behind us and move forward.” Presidential candidate John McCain takes the stage at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. He lost the presidency to Barack Obama.
His breaking point with Trump was the release a month before the election of a lewd audio in which Trump boasted of kissing and grabbing women by the genitals. McCain withdrew his support and said he’d write in “some good conservative Republican who’s qualified to be president.”
By the time McCain cast his vote against the GOP health bill, six months into Trump’s presidency, the two men were openly at odds. Trump railed against McCain publicly over the vote, and McCain remarked that he no longer listened to what Trump had to say because “there’s no point in it.”
By then, McCain had disclosed his brain cancer diagnosis and returned to Arizona to seek treatment.
John Sidney McCain III was born in 1936 in the Panama Canal zone, where his father was stationed in the military.
He followed his father and grandfather, the Navy’s first father-and-son set of four-star admirals, to the Naval Academy, where he enrolled in what he described as a “four-year course of insubordination and rebellion.”
On October 1967, McCain was on his 23rd bombing round over North Vietnam when he was shot out of the sky and taken prisoner.
McCain returned home from his years as a POW on crutches and never regained full mobility in his arms and leg. He and his first wife soon divorced.
In 1981, he married Cindy Hensley, the daughter of a wealthy beer distributor in Arizona. By 1982, he’d been elected to the House and four years later to an open Senate seat. He and Cindy had four children, to add to three from his first marriage. Their youngest was adopted from Bangladesh.