What did you like about John McCain?

He was a real straight shooter. Whatever he saw that was best, no matter what his party thought, he went for it. For the good of the country! A REAL American!

I’ll let HRC speak for me. https://www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-president-chad-griffin-issues-statement-on-passing-of-sen-john-mccain

He was a better man the final years of his life. I believe everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves. McCain succeeded imo.

^I’m kinda in this camp. McCain was NOT a great person. He had a new found sense of morality, after his cancer diagnosis. I suppose he backed his own morality occasionally, but he more than often supported the GOP, regardless of the party’s infringements on his claimed values…

In a way, he gets respect by being the lesser of many evils…

He did go through some amazing shit. He did help professional sports. He gave the slightest glimmer of character, in the entire current GOP….

He was willing to go against his party at times. He seemed like a nice family man. I think overall he was a good person. There was plenty that I disagreed with him on though. Plus, when he ran for president he really disappointed me. Moved so far right to satisfy the base. Romney did the same thing.

I probably disagreed with most of McCain’s policies but I respected the man. He had integrity and the courage to stand up for what he believed in. He was a decent man who could rise above party politics to be a true American. More McCains and less of what we have now would benefit the country greatly.

I liked that he didn’t go along to get along. In this aspect alone he was a maverick.

I liked that he was so strong as a POW in which he refused to leave captivity until all other POW’s were released.

I like how he dedicated his life to serving the USA.

It seems that this image of “maverick” (he voted 83% along with Trump) is common, but I’m wondering if there were specific votes that were your favorites. And more importantly, is this (seemingly undeserved) “maverick” image enough to improve your opinion of a man so militaristic and who pushed for Iraq, wanted a war with Iran, call peace activists “low life scum”, called Vietnamese people “gooks”, supported continued arming of Saudi Arabia in their bombing in Yemen, etc? Is there a precedent for this? Do we generally support people who do demonstrably terrible things as long as they have a general (but vague) reputation as a “maverick”?

He was a POW in the Vietnam war held by the Vietnamese. Despite the name “Hanoi Hilton”, it was anything but a nice place to live for 5 years. Gook was probably about the only word that was printable that he could’ve called them.

^ I’m not saying that his casual racism is the worst part of his legacy – I consider the deaths he helped cause a pretty big deal. But he was using that term up until at least 2000. And he may have been held captive, but he was the guy dropping bombs on that country. Torture is certainly not ok, but some context here – we were the bad guys. We certainly did a lot worse to that country. And he was a part of that. I’m not sure how that makes “gooks” ok.

But again, his record is far worse than this use of “gook”.

@notnotnotnot FYI: John McCain did not start the Vietnam war. Our democrat President Lyndon Bains Johnson did.

@notnotnot. You brought up his usage of gooks, not me.
And the war was wrong, but people had to serve. Thousands were drafted.
They did what they were ordered to do.

“It was he who took the lead in significantly healing the wounds of war, and normalizing and promoting the comprehensive Vietnam-U.S. partnership,” Minh said.

McCain had been one of the most vocal proponents in Washington in favor of normalizing ties with Communist-led Vietnam, a former enemy of the United States. source

Like I said above, I believe everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves. McCain succeeded imo.

@gondwanalon – Technically, this happened years before, but Kennedy and Johnson certainly escalated things. But I think your point was that McCain was just a soldier and didn’t decide to invade Vietnam. This is a valid point. But it doesn’t mean that we get to pretend that he was some “war hero” without dissecting the war that he’s associated with. I personally find those who risked prison to avoid fighting in Vietnam significantly more heroic than those that volunteered and followed orders to commit atrocities.

@chyna: “You brought up his usage of gooks, not me.”

That’s correct – in a list of some of McCain’s highlights. You only tried to defend his use of that term. Can I assume that you are opposed to his foreign policy then?

@Stache – Yes, you said that you believe everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves. When did this guy even attempt to redeem himself for his war-mongering and violent foreign policy? The Iraq invasion, who he played a big role in pushing for, wasn’t that long ago. Yemen was just last year. He was pushing for attacking Iran for the past decade+. He had a list of other countries he wanted to bomb. When did his redemption happen? Did we miss it? Did he have some kind of death bed apology? His record doesn’t read like a guy that redeemed shit.

@kritiper “Whatever he saw that was best, no matter what his party thought, he went for it. For the good of the country! A REAL American!”

Two word rebuttal:
Sarah Palin

I will say that McCain had shown integrity at some points in his life, such as refusing to be released from captivity until his fellow soldiers were released too. The McCain-Feingold Act was move in the right direction, as was his vote against repealing Obamacare.

That said, there has been a lot of whitewashing of the dude’s record. He voted against making Martin Luther King day a holiday, and against the Civil Rights Act. He flew over 20 missions in Vietnam dropping bombs and is probably responsible for directly murdering a lot of innocent women and children. Also, he wasn’t compelled to do this, he signed up for the military and he volunteered for combat duty, as I understand the facts. Now war is hell and perhaps he gets a pass for butchering innocents in that case, but his support and aggressive advocacy for many unnecessary wars has undoubtedly resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths.

I really don’t see how someone with that legacy can be celebrated as a hero. Would it be different to you if he had lined up the tens of thousands of women and children and shot them in the head one-by-one? Would you celebrate a man who did that? But a guy who worked hard to convince the nation to engage in wars that were certain to have that same outcome somehow gets worshiped by the media, celebrities, etc…

Also, let’s be clear, he was beating the war drums very recently, it’s not like this guy turned pacifist in his last years.

I don’t love trashing a dead guy’s life work, but I’m disappointed with how easily people are overlooking some pretty disgusting choices.

John McCain: War Hero, Father, Politician, Mass Murderer.

I think he was more a nice man than a good politician.
He is the guy you will choose to sit with in the cafeteria, or go to his annual BBQ, but debating issues you go with someone else.
He was a nice guy, but not much of a leader.
That was why he was squashed by Palin. She was outspoken and brought a lot of energy to the table. And dumb as a rock.
Around her making any point just felt pointless, so he let her prattle away, and watched his goal slide away.

Naming Palin was a really dumb move, but boy did SNL have fun with it!

I liked the shopping channel bit.
But, when Tina Fey was doing Sarah, and Sarah walked out, that was sweet too.

So you are asking us to state what we like about the man just so you can shit all over our responses? I don’t have time for this. I’m out.

^ I left the other thread per request because I didn’t realize it was just a thread for positive comments. But here I do want to discuss the McCain myth and ask if people really have specific reasons why they liked him, beyond vague statements about his principles, etc.

I’ve been here long enough to know that most people here are not blood-thirsty war hawks. So, to see the McCain love carry over here is puzzling. I would like to think that people just don’t know what kind of horror this guy has inflicted on the world. So, yes – I am “shit(ting) all over your responses”, or what is also referred to as “challenging” your responses.

One of – or possibly the greatest war hawks in my lifetime has finally died. And we’re met with a deluge of people praising him and not even discussing his actual efforts and work.

@gorillapaws I never said he was perfect. (And I didn’t vote for him.)

Compared to Bush, I wish I’d voted for McCain.

I think McCain was from an older era. After the two world wars, there was a lot of celebration. I think the US and most of the troops (at least early on,) saw the Vietnam War as a fight for freedom, and democracy. My father was there with the French, as special forces. Then he was redeployed, as infantry a couple years later.
He was captured at one point, and spent some time in a POW camp. He said they put them in holes, where they couldn’t really stand, or sit, and had to urinate , and defecate on themselves. The VC gave them nasty water, that gave them terrible diarrhea, and really didn’t feed them. Luckily, they were rescued by other special forces. My father did was he was told. He killed people. He was mainly a sniper. So. I don’t think he killed many women, or children. He was eventually shot multiple times, and spent almost 2 years recovering from his wounds. When he finally got back home, he said people spit on him, and called him names. He did not expect a parade, but he didn’t expect to be treated as badly as he was either…

America learned a lot of lessons from Vietnam. Well. It’s population did…

McCain was a military guy. They saw the military, as a way to handle things. If you see a surgeon, and an internal medicine specialist, for the same problem, the surgeon will recommend surgery, and the internal medicine specialist, will recommend a different approach. Many surgeons, will perform different surgeries, on the same problems.

I guess, I am just saying that I think McCain had America’s best interests at heart, when he was calling for war. He may not have been fully capable of seeing the forest for the trees….

I don’t think being a POW does anything to prepare someone to be a nation’s leader.
If respect for hardship and devotion are prerequisites for the Presidency, disabled single mother veteran here up for nomination.

I heard that he refused early release from Hanoi Hilton until prisoners who had been the longer were released first.

That is in the movie about his capture.
That is standard POW procedure.
He made a big deal of it, wanting accolades, but if he had taken their offer it would have equated him (militarily) with draft dodgers.
I say old man, bad form.

How on earth could a POW be equated with a draft dodger?

There is a code of ethics involved with cycling them home.
If he had accepted the offer, he would have been sent home ahead of others who had been there as much as four years ahead of him, not to mention the deal involved providing information. Big taboos, and viewed by the military in very dark terms.
To civilians, name, rank, and serial number may sound cliche, but it is serious business.

Edit: In fact, draft dodgers are choosing to not participate in military function.
To jump line would have been agreeing to military terms, then not meeting the requirements of that contract.

I admired him as as ex.soldier a pow while serving his country I am also ex soldier and pow while serving my country also but there are certain traits we all have as now veterans because with this generation our patraitism disappered as fast as we the ex soldiers veterans .people as a whole have lost all presptives insight visions of what fighting for a country means so Sen Mcain served another way even though out of uniform still trying to protect we the people Rest in Peace SIR

Honorable is the first word that comes to mind. And in the current climate that is no small feat.

I really can’t have much of an opinion since I didn’t really know him, but man. He seems to be universally respected and admired, so I’ll just go with that.