Yeah, didn't always agree with him but he always seemed to be a man of integrity.
Considering he fucked over California to take Colorado River water to build golf courses in the Arizona desert, yea fuck that guy. Oh and all the other terrible shit like fighting Planned Parenthood, fighting to keep MLK day out of Arizona and rolling over on the Bush Tax Cuts. And after Karl Rove spread some evil nasty shit about him, yea no backbone when it mattered.
It's true that as a congressman in 1983, McCain voted against making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday. He was on the losing end of a 338 to 90 vote in the House of Representatives. McCain no longer stands by that vote. On April 4, 2008 — the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death — McCain said the vote was wrong in a speech he gave in Memphis, the city where King died. "We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I myself made long ago when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong," he said, to loud reaction from the crowd. "I was wrong, and eventually realized it in time to give full support — full support — for a state holiday in my home state of Arizona. I'd remind you that we can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans."
Changing one's opinions and outlook on life is not a bad thing, despite calls of 'flip flop' that the media throws out when new facts are presented and people change their outlooks. When confronted with new data, the ability to use your common sense, logic and reason to change conclusions is a true sign of adulthood, IMO. McCain was against MLK day in Arizona because his constituency is elderly racists. As we used to say back home, Arizona is a drier, whiter, more racist Florida. His stance was a full 15 years, nearly a generation, after MLK was killed and nonviolent protest and engagement won the initial battles for civil rights. If he said these things in 1973, I might give him a pass as it was still too early to see if the civil rights movements were going to devolve into open warfare or not. Robert Byrd was a full on upper level leader in the KKK that then turned into one of the most progressive people in the Senate. Byrd spent the greater part of four decades working to seek, if not forgiveness, then at least reconciliation for his past. I don't see that in McCain. My problem is not that he changed. My problem is that the media is in love with the guy and a lot of his history is going to be washed into the memory hole by all his media buddies and he is going to be painted as some noble moderate Republican when he was really not. McCain has never really had a spine from what I was able to see and only stood up when he thought it could get him closer to the White House. And I say this as a guy who wanted McCain 2000 to be the nominee.
Being hostile to Americans seems to be a trait of Republicans. Guess in my mind his tendency to criticize Trump and his illness puts him in a better light than most of the current Republicans.
The paradox is that it isn't. With regard to people, economics highlights that people are the main basis for growing your economy - having a healthy age division, good education, good health, good health coverage, etc. With regard to the environment, the cost of not taking care of the environment is considerable because it negatively impacts other aspects. Furthermore, if one looks at Europe many nations have seen an increase in manufacturing and jobs linked to especially renewable energy. These are reasons that OECD and IMF are pushing for universal health care cover and better education. And shareholders in many major corporations (Shell and BP spring to mind) are pushing the businesses to focus even more on the environment and green energy. The problem is that the Republicans are driven by out-of-date thinking and sponsored by individuals more focused on asset stripping the country than building a stronger economy.