Page 28 - Time Magazine, Sep. 17, 2018

and incomplete attempts to overhaul the
nation’s immigration system. APPRECIATION
McCain was as famous for his persona Learning
as for any policy he authored. He could from a lion
treat a Saturday Night Live sketch and a
defense hearing with the same sly humor. By Tim Kaine
He took the time to know not just heads
of state but also up-and-comers in foreign I came to the Senate in 2013,
parliaments who would guide the next knowing John McCain the
generation. Seldom could a reporter ask legend but not John McCain
him a question that McCain hadn’t con- the man. But he since became
sidered at length or wasn’t willing to dis- my colleague and chair. We
cuss in hours of interviews in Capitol Hill traveled together. He taught
hallways or aboard his campaign bus, me a lot.
branded the Straight Talk Express. In my first months on
the Senate Armed Services
EVERYTHING ABOUT MCCAINcontrasted Committee, I unknowingly
starkly with the White House’s current walked into a firefight with
occupant. McCain for years sought a him during a hearing. When
bipartisan solution to the nation’s bro- he didn’t like the tack I was
ken immigration system; Trump’s cam- taking in a line of questioning,
paign caught fire when he stoked anti- he interrupted me, and the
immigration fears. McCain’s career in the fight was on. We locked into a
military was courageous; Trump won five back-and-forth, with witnesses,
trying to prove our points.
deferments from the Vietnam-era draft. Afterward, I was worried that I
During his campaign, Trump mocked had offended him—a first-year
McCain’s years as a prisoner of war and Senator battling with a Senate
refused to back down, even after the Sen- lion. But he clapped me on the
wavered. The slogan of his unsuccessful ator’s diagnosis. A go-to line at Trump’s back, and it was clear he loved
2008 presidential campaign, “Country rallies was mocking McCain’s vote against it. McCain famously used to
First,” rang true until the end. Obamacare’s repeal. “Thumbs down,” say, “A fight not joined is a fight
McCain grew up in the Washington Trump sneered, even as McCain retreated not enjoyed.”
area and followed the path of his father to his Arizona ranch to fight for his life. John was the first colleague
and grandfather to the U.S. Naval Acad- After McCain died, Trump initially to seek me out after I returned
emy. He became a fighter pilot, flying declined to offer a proclamation honor- to the Senate a few days after
23 missions over North Vietnam. In the ing the death of an American war hero. the November 2016 election.
final one, on Oct. 26, 1967, his Skyhawk Aides had to persuade him to re-lower He came up to me and said,
dive bomber was downed by a missile the flags atop the White House to half- “Tim, there is only one person
that blew off its wing. McCain became a staff. As official Washington paid tribute in the Senate who knows just
prisoner of war, enduring more than five to McCain at the cathedral, Trump was at how you feel. You and I are the
years of captivity and beatings, because the White House tweeting attacks on the only ones who have been on a
he refused to defy the military’s ethics press, the courts and Canada. McCain’s national ticket and lost. And my
advice to you is just get right
that the first prisoner taken should be family and friends made clear at the ser- back to work.”
the first to be released. vice that the disgust ran both ways. I’ve been thinking of those
McCain spent two terms in the House “We gather here to mourn the passing words a lot in the days since
before winning his Senate seat in 1986. A of American greatness—the real thing,” his death. He was right. It is
conservative and a staunch defense hawk, Meghan McCain said, “not cheap rheto- good to get back to work. But
he nevertheless demonstrated a willing- ric from men who will never come near losing him is still painful.
ness to work across party lines. During his the sacrifices he gave so willingly, nor
decades in the Senate, he teamed up with the opportunistic appropriation of those Kaine is a Democratic Senator
Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold on a who live lives of comfort and privilege from Virginia
plan to impose new limits on soft-money while he suffered and served.”
spending and with Democratic Senator That McCain was the posthumous Senators
and fellow Vietnam veteran John Kerry bombardier behind this final anti-Trump McCain
to lay the groundwork to normalize rela- broadside was evident enough. Under and Kaine on
tions with Vietnam in the 1990s. Biparti- the neo-Gothic columns and before a na- July 8, 2014
san approaches to big problems became a tional television audience, the collection
McCain hallmark, presaging his repeated of political leaders assembled in his