Political Quotes

“Mr. President, until the very end, he served his country-- until the very end. ``Service,'' to John McCain, meant living something unique in all the history of the world. It meant living in service to something unique--the American idea. E pluribus unum--``from many, one''--might seem like a quaint vestige from a more idealistic time when compared to the brutal and determined divisions of our time, but it was an idea that defined John McCain's life. In and through his service, he defied categorization; frustrated the tired conventions of the way party loyalists were supposed to behave; acted against his own political interests time and again in a way that, from our vantage point today, is nothing short of awe-inspiring; and he recognized that democracy was hard but that living in bondage to tyranny was far harder. We talk a lot in this Chamber about freedom. No one in this city and few in American history knew as much or as vividly about the price of freedom as did John McCain. Our words are too often cheap and eminently forgettable, but John McCain paid our freight with his body and with his soul. To our shame, he lived long enough to have to take to this Senate floor to inveigh against the rank tribalism that we have fallen into lately. He knew that giving in to our worst impulses to score pyrrhic political victories was as easy as it was dangerous and was and is a tangible threat to American democracy--a democracy to which he gave every bit of his life.…”