John McCain apparently described himself as a man who made lots of mistakes, but who loved his country and believed in public service. That sounds about right to me.
I’ve always believed that the country would have been far better off if McCain had won the GOP nomination in 2000 and had been elected president. He was far better prepared to deal with 9/11 than Bush was. My guess is that he probably would have launched the Iraq War, just as Bush did, but he would have fought it more competently.
In 2008, on the other hand, he was the wrong man at the wrong time. If he had been elected, all of his instincts would have told him to cut the deficit, not to stimulate the staggering economy. He would have been a disaster. We can be grateful that he didn’t win, and that doesn’t even include the farcical Palin episode.
I didn’t agree with his enthusiasm for overseas military adventures, but at least he advocated intervention for the right reasons. He believed in human rights, the rule of law, and liberal democratic values. He supported the ideas that truly make America great.
In so many ways, he was the antithesis of Trump. He will be missed, badly.