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Rebuke to Trump by Meghan McCain, and Obama at John McCain’s funeral service

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John McCain carefully planned his funeral service. And it wasn’t just perfunctory: there were some clear messages. The contrast between the current occupant of the White House and McCain, McCain’s daughter Meghan, and former President’s Barack Obama and George W. Bush could not have been more stark. The three talked about the more lofty values, practices and goals of political life — while sometimes taking swipes at Donald Trump, who wasn’t invited and spent the day golfing.
Meghan McCain’s comments were perfectly delivered in a way that honored her father’s spirit, values and place in history:
In an emotional eulogy sharing her memories and love for her father Saturday, Meghan McCain made sure to make her opinions on President Donald Trump very clear.

John McCain “was a great man,” 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.”

It was an obvious reference to President Trump, whose campaign slogan is “Make America Great Again,” and who got four draft deferments to avoid serving in the Vietnam War.

Later, Meghan McCain was even clearer: “The America of John McCain is generous and welcoming and bold. She is resourceful and confident and secure. She meets her responsibilities. She speaks quietly because she is strong. America does not boast because she has no need. The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.” Applause followed.

The speech was delivered at the Washington National Cathedral front of three former presidents, many current and former members of Congress, and a plethora of other political elites. The McCains did not invite President Trump to the service.

“John McCain was not defined by prison, by the navy, by the Senate, by the Republican party or any one of the deeds in his life,” Meghan McCain said. “John McCain was defined by love.”
Here is a full video of her remarks:

And the McCain-requested eulogies by former President Obama and Bush? They could have not offered a more stark contracts been traditional American politics and Presidents and the kind of politics and White House occupant the United States has now:

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the two men who thwarted Mr. McCain’s ambitions to become commander in chief, stood one after the other before the nation’s elite at Washington National Cathedral on Saturday to honor the man they beat, extolling him as a one-of-a-kind figure the likes of which will not be seen again anytime soon.

That they were asked, and not the current president, spoke volumes about the man and the moment. And while neither former president made explicit mention of President Trump, who left the White House as the service began to go to his golf course in Virginia — uninvited and unwelcome at the funeral — their tributes to the senator could hardly be heard without the unspoken contrast to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

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

And:

Mr. Bush praised Mr. McCain for his “courage and decency,” an exemplar of the grand American values of standing up for the oppressed and against bigotry. “John’s voice will always come as a whisper over our shoulder — we are better than this, America is better than this,” Mr. Bush said.
…
Like Mr. McCain, many of the Republicans who attended have found themselves deeply discouraged by their own party’s president. But unlike Mr. McCain, most of them do not say so out loud, for fear of rage by Twitter or retribution by the base. It was almost as if it were a meeting of Washington’s political underground, if the underground met in a grand cathedral with 10,650 organ pipes.

Mr. McCain, who died last weekend at 81, directed his own farewell with the same contrarian spirit that flavored his political career. As he battled brain cancer, he told his advisers months ago that he wanted Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama to speak at his funeral, then called each of them to make the request. The point was to emphasize the common values that they shared despite their differences.

What did the service underscore?

That McCain was someone who embodied American greatness, despite some flaws (which all great Americans have had). That there are behavioral norms, bitpartisan norms of civility, and a grandeur in the presidency, which is public trust. None of which are observed by the current occupant. That there has been a historic continuity to these norms (until now).

The contrast before the quality of people who held the office and the current occupant could never have been put in such profound display. Suggesting –as McCain clearly wanted to display at his funeral — that these qualities may not be prevalent now.

But they are here, waiting in forced exile, to return another day.