Here’s one of our favorite John McCain stories, via this beautiful eulogy in The Atlantic by Todd S. Purdam: “When his North Vietnamese captors demanded the names of his flight squadron, McCain recited the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, knowing that the false information would suffice (for the moment) to end their abuse. ‘There’s no bar fight he will walk away from,’ his onetime political strategist John Weaver once told me.”


I admired John McCain (mostly his straight-talk) but one should ALWAYS walk away from a bar fight, because those fights are inevitably about nothing worth fighting about. In general, I miss the days when (at least some) politicians spoke their own minds instead of reciting the talking points handed down from above.
Well said!