In the heartbreak of Meghan McCain’s eulogy for her father today, in front of nearly every colleague and friend the storied Senator ever had, the weeping daughter of an American hero implored her dead father to look down and see who had come to send him off.
She told the story of her childhood through the eyes of John McCain’s daughter, and she told stories about where they lived, and his life with her mother Cindy. At times in tears, and at times unable to go on for long before steeling herself and sucking breath to speak again, it was Meghan’s ferocity that stood out in the entire eulogy.
And she was ferocious. The anger in her voice at those who would define her father by his service or his conservatism or his adherence to the Republican Party — those who would remember him only as the least important of his roles, as though he were never just “dad” — was apparent.
And so in front of the leaders of the last three presidential administrations, in front of the First Ladies, in front of every Senator and Representative in attendance, Republican and Democrat alike, Meghan McCain made a comment to make sure that he was not defined by the image that Donald Trump has painted for him over the last two years. As Meghan described “the America of John McCain,” she got to one description that surely shook Ivanka and her husband, in attendance but four rows back, heads down, to their core:
The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great.”
That’s the story of a man who would be President, but for a whisper campaign against him nearly two decades ago by the earliest version of the liars who staff the current President’s White House now. A more famous last name kept McCain from the Oval Office, but it never kept him from greatness.
Watch Meghan’s fearsome comment here:
Featured image via screen capture
