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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI wonder when McCain talked to Obama about the eulogy, if they discussed what he wanted?
This article linked below has a little info which I have posted but not much detail. I kept wondering today as I listened to Obama how much, or even if, they discussed content and flavor and what McCain may have said about why he wanted Obama to speak, or what he wished for him so say, or if they even talked about that. Or if just Obama and Bush speaking was itself the message, because obviously that in itself was a powerful message. I just found this whole thing fascinating and hope that someone was there listening to that phone call and it comes out at some point. But either way, it was extraordinary.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/politics/john-mccain-barack-obama-george-bush-memorial-service/index.html
Inside McCain's surprise eulogy invitation to Obama
It was a day in early April when Barack Obama received an unexpected call from McCain, who was battling brain cancer and said he had a blunt question to ask: Would you deliver one of the eulogies at my funeral?
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So, I've been wondering whether McCain and Obama had somehow developed an intimate relationship after Obama left office, if they had been having quiet conversations over the last year or two that haven't been publicly discussed as McCain neared the end of his journey.
It turns out, after talking to several friends of both men this week, their relationship isn't intimate at all, but rather one rooted in mutual respect and a shared sense of alarm at today's caustic political climate. Their telephone call on that April day was first arranged by advisers, not McCain simply dialing up Obama as he would do with his legion of friends, a sign they were hardly tight.
In fact, the two have spoken by phone only a couple of times since Obama left the White House, aides to both men say, most notably last summer when Obama reached out after McCain cast the deciding vote to salvage the Affordable Care Act. He thanked him. The call was brief.
snip
"I think it is John McCain imparting a lesson in civility by asking the two men who defeated him to speak, as an example to America that differences in political views and contests shouldn't be so important that we lose our common bonds and the civility that is, or used to be, a hallmark of American democracy," Duprey said.
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama in his campaigns and in the White House, said the clear message McCain is sending is "about our shared heritage, our shared trust of this democracy that transcends party and transcends tribe."
Hekate
(90,714 posts)...and our place in the world -- the impending loss of everything we have stood for since 1945, and the rise of nationalism around the globe. Oh, and please would you give my eulogy.
JimGinPA
(14,811 posts)oasis
(49,389 posts)deliver this important message to the nation. Obama shared a passage from Hemingway with Meghan, which hints there was a bit of coordination between those two.
lostnfound
(16,180 posts)There was something visionary in his choices.
To make it through several years in captivity, learning poems tapped in Morse code...
The last act of Richard III, as David Frum said. McCain covered the news cycle for 48 hours with a display of bipartisan respect, which seems impossible in Trump world.
OhioBlue
(5,126 posts)that it made perfect sense. Aside from the fact that he wanted to send a message, to elevate the discourse, to call for service above self, he knew the man that Obama is.
Is there any political leader that one could trust more to deliver an eloquent, honorable and honest eulogy? I mean, if he agreed to it? I don't see Obama giving platitudes to say, Karl Rove or Mitch McConnell... but as Obama said, his deep respect for McCain was heartfelt and true, he wouldn't have agreed otherwise.
I think while they may not have enjoyed an intimate friendship as McCain and Biden did, McCain did see Obama for who he was, even if there may have been political differences and some resentment in their relationship. There is simply not another political leader that I see as more trustworthy to know that they would eulogize another with grace, dignity and honor while calling on others to rise above the current atmosphere of hate and divisiveness.