Column: Remembering John McCain

I had already written out this morning's column ahead of time when I learned of U.S. Sen. John McCain's passing.

His death has changed the course of my day, because now I am writing to remember the man who earned the media moniker of "Maverick," and the reputation of someone who usually went his own way.

Throughout his career in politics, John Sidney McCain III had been vilified left and right for taking his own stands; for neither toeing the party line nor bowing to the other side of the ideological aisle.

Some can argue that he conceded way too much; that he was the typical politician with his finger to the wind and his nose where it didn't belong.

My personal opinion is that John McCain often represented the Washington, D.C. establishment. And yet, he didn't always.

On the one hand, McCain spent 35 years in the United States Congress, including two terms in the House of Representatives and the rest serving in the Senate until his death yesterday.

He certainly made a profession out of legislative politics, something that I don't appreciate, because representation was never meant to be a career or an endeavor for personal gain.

And yet, many Washington, D.C., politicians seem to like it that way, and we let them by continuing to return them to office.

McCain reminded me of the Senate good, old boys who initially ganged up against squeaky-clean Jefferson Smith in "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington," but later were quoted as saying "If you ask me, I think that young fella is starting to make a whole lot of sense!"

John McCain was certainly well-entrenched in the Beltway, having built a comfortable nest there in which to feather.

In that sense, McCain represented to me what was wrong in Washington, D.C. There is indeed a swamp between Virginia and Maryland, and all of the critters in it have claimed a lily pad, burrow, rock, or chunk of tree moss of their very own.

Of course they are going to get upset when a real estate magnate rides in on a bulldozer and threatens to plow under their little piece of heaven.

On the other hand, McCain disappointed a lot of people in the way he voted. Irritating and frustrating as he could be at times, I respected him most of all for this reason.

He incensed the left by siding with former U.S. President George W. Bush on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also angered the right with some of his stands on illegal immigration, tax cuts and government spending.

He upset them all with campaign finance reform, too. Precious few in Washington, D.C. — Republican and Democrat alike — ever wanted to give up the soft money.

McCain was centrist in a lot of ways, but even the center would get its dander up over "The Maverick," who never truly walked any one way except his own. He wasn't a square or round peg, so he didn't fit into any pre-drilled holes. He drilled his own.

What made John McCain special is that few people really knew where he would stand on a given issue.

I clearly didn't, so I was sometimes blindsided and surprised where he would decide to fold his wings and light.

Because of that, he earned the media nickname "The Maverick." He tended to go his own way in spite of party and despite often strong political winds that blew.

That's why it came as no surprise to me that McCain decided to stop treatment on the aggressive brain cancer that had gripped his body as of late. He was going to fight it in his own way and buck convention to the end.

I think John McCain approached cancer the way he did his captors as a prisoner of war in Vietnam half a century ago.

He let them do their worst to him, torture and beat him seemingly into submission. But his spirit both surprised and betrayed the North Vietnamese, because it never let them defeat him.

I view John McCain as a survivor.

He wasn't a war hero, per se; not in the traditional sense anyway. He didn't do what Audie Murphy or Alvin York did. He didn't come home to ticker-tape parades, crisp new Navy whites, and a string of medal ceremonies.

John McCain returned to the United States of America battered, but not beaten; weakened, but not defeated.

In that way, he was an American hero, because he didn't break when he could have broken, and he displayed extraordinary courage in the face of pain, suffering and captive fear.

You can say what you want about John McCain. He's not at the top of my most admired list, either.

But he did stand for our country in times of war and during times of peace. For that, he deserves the honor of a sailor's farewell.

I haven't perused social media much yet, but I'm sure people are already making some very nasty, vile and incorrigible remarks about the now-deceased "Maverick."

Just stop. Stop it now.

Whether you disagreed with, disliked, or outright hated John McCain, he was still a human being. He suffered from a horrible disease, one similar to that which took my own father's life six years ago.

If you can't have at least minimal compassion toward he and his family for that suffering and loss, then maybe you need to find a rock to crawl under and stay there, because demonstrably, you aren't suited for humanity.

John McCain was, and for that, he has my admiration in memoriam.