2LT International News

WASHINGTON, U.S. – For one last time, the 81-year-old former U.S. Senator John McCain, returned to Washington, and visited the U.S. Capitol, where he served in Congress for 35 years. 

The Vietnam War hero and a two-time Republican presidential candidate, who died on August 25, after a yearlong battle with brain cancer, was eulogized at a Capital Rotunda ceremony, which brought together the country’s bitterly divided leaders.

At McCain’s memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral was the last public event in Washington, where the former Arizona senator lived and worked over four decades.

It was part of McCain’s five-day, cross-country funeral procession, much of which he planned himself.

The nearly three hour service started with McCain’s daughter delivering an emotional and tearful speech and also featured two former U.S. Presidents, including former Democratic President Barack Obama and former Republican President George Bush. 

Meghan McCain stood near her father’s flag-draped casket and delivered a broadside against Trump, who had been uninvited by the McCain family as Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, George W Bush and Laura Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Dick Cheney and Al Gore.

She said, “We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness — the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served.”

Referencing Trump’s trademark phrase, she said, “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”

Meanwhile, McCain, who had also Obama and George W. Bush to speak at his memorial service saw the two past presidents sharing their personal testimony that overcoming rivalries and partisan politics. 

Both Obama and Bush denied McCain’s presidential aspirations and spoke of reconciling with him during personal moments afterward.

Both the presidents also delivered subtle digs at Trump’s style of leadership. 

In his eulogy, Obama said, “So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage. It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.”

He also appreciated the senator’s understanding that America’s security and influence came not from “our ability to bend others to our will” but universal values of rule of law and human rights.

Meanwhile, Bush recalled McCain as a champion for the “forgotten people” at home and abroad whose legacy will serve as a reminder, even in times of doubt, of the power of America as more than a physical place but a “carrier of human aspirations.”

He said, “John’s voice will always come as a whisper over our shoulder — we are better than this, America is better than this.”

Last week, McCain’s longtime aide read out, posthumously, a farewell letter written by the former Senator, in which he said, “We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.”

On Sunday, McCain will be buried at the U.S. Naval Academy, next to his best friend from the Class of 1958, Adm. Chuck Larson.

Meanwhile, as the political past, present and future of Washington were gathered to honor the war hero, the U.S. President remained absent and instead headed to his Virginia golf course.