Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
Today the United States and the world lost a voice of honor, decency, and courage. Senator John McCain died today after a gallant yet futile battle with an aggressive brain cancer, the same cancer that took the life of his friend Senator Ted Kennedy a decade ago. Senator Ben Sasse remarked: “Our nation aches for truth-tellers. This man will be greatly missed.”
I have always admired Senator McCain for his military service. This included his courage in one of the most frightening and dreadful things a sailor can experience, a fire at sea; in his case the disastrous fire aboard the USS Forrestal which killed over 150 of his shipmates and left him injured. Then his courage under fire and his indefatigable spirit while a prisoner of the North Vietnamese for five years. As a Senator he hewed his own path, while loyal to his party he did not hesitate to oppose it when its policies went against his sense of honor, dignity, or humanity.
I could go on but it is very late. I have been working in my house all day to get ready for laying more flooring in the morning. In fact I didn’t sit down until One A.M. While I was working Judy told me that Senator McCain had died. A few hours later I have to say that Senator Chuck Schumer, who certainly disagreed with McCain more often than not during their time in the Senate said it best:
“As you go through life, you meet few truly great people. John McCain was one of them. His dedication to his country and the military were unsurpassed, and maybe most of all, he was a truth teller — never afraid to speak truth to power in an era where that has become all too rare. The Senate, the United States, and the world are lesser places without John McCain.”
I will take some time to process his death and what it means. But for tonight I will just remember his remarkable life and hope that we as Americans can again rise to the ideals of our country that he tried hard to embody, even when he acknowledged that he had failed to do.
He was a rare man. I think that his defiance of President Trump was very much like that of Senator Stephen A. Douglas against President James Buchanan in the 1858 confrontation regarding the LeCompton Constitution. Like Douglas, McCain was demonized by the President and his supporters in his Party. But honestly I could hear Senator McCain echoing Douglas’s words against Buchanan and his administration:
“After the Christmas recess, the Administration unleashed its heavy horsemen: Davis, Slidell, Hunter, Toombs, and Hammond, all southerners. They damned me as a traitor and demanded that I be stripped of my chairmanship of the Committee on Territories and read out of the Democratic party. Let the fucking bastards threaten, proscribe, and do their worst, I told my followers; it would not cause any honest man to falter. If my course divided the Democratic party, it would not be my fault. We were engaged in a great struggle for principle, I said, and we would defy the Administration to the bitter end.”
Regardless of whether one agreed or disagreed with Senator McCain on the issues, one could never dispute the fact that he tried to operated and stand on principle, especially over the last two years of his life and career where like Douglas he had to stand on principle against an unprincipled President and his equally unprincipled supporters. I only wish that McCain had lived to see his principles overcome the malevolent machinations of President Trump, his unprincipled administration, and his cult like supporters.
Until tomorrow,
Peace
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 