on a saturday to an important meeting or turning down a popular friday night dinner invitation at the munich security conference we went to every year because it was too far to walk, we would stay in the hotel and have what john learned to call our peaceful sabbath dinners. with john they weren t that peaceful. john naturally grumbled all the way of what i was putting him through. right now he s probably deriving some pleasure from the fact it turned out that his funeral was held on a saturday and i had to walk to get here. i m sure if he were here now, he would tell me that s define justice.
responses to complicated national problems like health care. and, of course, he was right. in his remarks last july, john also spoke eloquently of our position in the world, of america s continuing responsibility for principal leadership in the world. it was as if he thought that might be one of his last better opportunities to move his colleagues and his country. it s a speech worth reading, but i just want to quote one sentence. what greater cause could we hope to serve than helping keep america the strong, inspiring, inspirational beacon of liberty and dignity and defender of the dignity of all human beings. that in short was the mccain american foreign policy. moral, engaged and strong.
were touring the hanoi hilton a group of college students recognized john and they began to chant wildly, mccain, mccain. they wanted to take his pictures and have him sign autographs. when it was over, i asked him why he got such a rock star reception in hanoi. and with classic directness, he said, well, first, because they ve been taught that i was treated a lot better here than i really was. and, second, it s because of the normalization of relations between the u.s. and vietnam. that was a classic mccain understatement. along with president clinton and john kerry, john mccain was the leader in congress in bringing about the normalization of relations between the u.s. and vietnam. an extraordinary personal act of
that assassination. i think we re seeing a bit of that now. there s something going to be different tomorrow than today. we ve been through the turns of events before. we ll be right back at the beginning of the hour for beginning of this service. john mccapable designed and crypted most of it. who he wanted to say good-bye to him. scripted. scripted
and john s life he nobly served and advanced these american values. and remarkably his death seems to have reminded the american people that these values are what makes us a great nation. not the triable partisanship and personal attack politics that have recently characterized our life. this week s celebration of the life and values and patriotism of this hero, i think you ve taken our country above all that. in a way, it s the last great that john mccain gave america. and i want to suggest today that we can give a last great gift to him, which is to nurture these values and take them forward