Pomp, grandeur and bipartisan tributes at farewell for McCain, as an uninvited president looms
WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain never attained the American presidency he twice sought, yet official Washington gathered for a farewell memorial on Saturday that had all the splendor and solemnity of a state funeral, marked by bipartisan tributes that doubled as implicit but extraordinarily powerful rebukes of the divisive incumbent president.
Under the soaring Neo-Gothic arches of Washington National Cathedral, two former presidents who thwarted McCain's aspirations to that office delivered back-to-back eulogies, joining current and former members of Congress, Cabinet officials, diplomats and military officers to honor a man hailed as a war hero and statesman, yet acknowledged as a flawed and complicated character.
The dual keynote role for Democrat Barack Obama and Republican George W. Bush, before 2,500 invited guests who filled the polished pews, was McCain's idea - his final, poignant nod to the
