Former senator Joe Lieberman gave a solemn eulogy for his departed friend and colleague Senator John McCain, who passed away last week after a battle with brain cancer. Though they served the Senate on opposite sides of the aisle, the admiration between Lieberman and McCain was well known. Long-time friends, for a period of time, Lieberman appeared to be the frontrunner to join McCain on the 2008 ballot as his vice presidential hopeful. Though their disparate political ideologies eventually derailed that possibility, McCain remained open about his respect for Leiberman as a statesman and a compatriot, telling the Hartford Courant that “I guarantee you if I was elected president, he would have been Secretary of State.’’ To the assembled crowd, Leiberman recounted many tales of his times with McCain, recalling him not just as a talented politician but as a dedicated and moral man. Read the full transcript of the speech here: Cindy McCain and the wonderful McCain family, presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, Secretaries Kissinger and Clinton and all of the other honored guests that are here, ladies and gentlemen, becoming John McCain's friend is one of the great blessings of my life. Being asked to pay tribute to him today is one of the great honors and for that I thank Cindy and the entire McCain family. I also want to thank them, including his mother, his brother, his sister, and seven wonderful children for the love and support you gave John throughout his life and his service, none more than in the last year of his life. You, Cindy, have been absolutely saintly and we, his friends, cannot thank you enough. There's a special satisfaction that comes from serving a cause greater than yourself. I heard John say those words hundreds of times, particularly to young people, and you all heard them a lot as well. But for him we know they were not just words in a speech, they were the creed that he lived by. The greater cause to which he devoted his life was America, not so much the country defined by its borders, but the America of our founding values, freedom, human rights, opportunity, democracy, and equal justice under law. In 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 make us a great nation. Not the tribal partisanship, personal attack politics that have recently characterized our life. This week, the celebration of the life and values and patriotism of this hero I think have taken our country above all that. In a way it is the last great gift 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 into the years ahead to make America the better country John always knew it could be. I pray that we will and I ask you to do so as well. Let me try to pay tribute to this great man by describing and sharing stories from our friendship which began in the early 1990s as part of a bipartisan group pushing our government to stop the aggression and slaughter in Bosnia. Then we began to collaborate on a lot of bipartisan legislation. But really our friendship deepened in our travels together around the world with amigo Lindsey Graham. When you traveled with John, even with Lindsey along, the purpose was not to have fun. In fact, sometimes it seemed the purpose was just to survive the schedule he had organized. John traveled to get the most out of every day he possibly could and he did. And so did we who were privileged to know him. John traveled to learn so he could be a better senator. He traveled to represent America as best he could wherever we went, and he did. He traveled to support the men and women of our armed services, whether in war or at pace, wherever they were, and they in turn welcomed him in not just respect but awe as the hero John McCain was, is, and always will be. In shared experiences in long conversations on these trips, John and I got to know and trust each other as friends in a way that doesn't happen because it can happen much any more in the frenetic Washington life of senators. Our friendship taught me many things, including I must add some jokes that I otherwise never would have known. John loved to laugh and make others laugh. When he found a joke that people liked, he told it over and over and over again. One of my favorites was about the two inmates going through the food line for dinner at the state penitentiary. One says to the other "The food is terrible here" and the other says "It was a lot better when I was governor." Yeah, I heard that one often and I laughed every time because John laughed so hard every time he told it. The range of john's mind's interest and experience was impressive and often surprising. You couldn't characterize this man. He loved to read history and fiction and talk about it, argue about it. He had a pervasive curiosity about everything in life. He loved the outdoors and all of god's creatures, large and small, who lived there. Most people would be surprised by how much pleasure this combative senator got from watching the hummingbirds at the McCain home outside Sedona, Arizona. But of course John's great strength was his character. He was honest, fair, and civilized. In all the times we were together, I never heard him say a bigoted word about anyone. The American people saw this great quality most clearly during the 2000 campaign when the woman made an offensive statement against then senator Barack Obama. To me what was most impressive about John's reaction was that it was pure reflex. It was who john was. he didn't need to consult anyone. He immediately defended his opponent's name and honor and thereby elevated for that moment our politics and made us a more perfect union. Personally, I can tell you that was a real friend in accommodating what were to him my unusual practices as a religiously observant Jew, whether it was walking with me 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 shalom dinners. With John they weren't that peaceful. John naturally in doing these wonderful acts of friendship grumbled all the way about what I was putting him through, you know. Right now I think he is probably deriving some pleasure from the fact it turned out 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 was divine justice. He ultimately as he did with so much of his life turned these interfaith interferences into a truly hilarious comedy routine. It began with a solemn pronouncement by John that he was converting to Judaism. Then he explained less solemnly "I do this not because of any particularly liking for the religion, it is just that for so many years I had to go along with all of Joe's religious nonsense, i might as well convert and get the benefits." One of his favorite targets was the sabbath elevators in Israel hotels, preprogrammed to stop at every floor. John had many virtues, but patience was not one of them. Therefore, a ride on those shabot elevators weren't the happiest times we spent together. I say this to say in stories how full and genuine were his acceptance of my practices which were different from what he knew, but to make a larger point.<doc-sep>“When you traveled with John, the purpose was not to have fun,” Lieberman said. “John had a restless energy every day, including the days we traveled, to get the most out of every day, and he did. John traveled to learn so he could be a better senator. He traveled to represent America as best he could, wherever he could, and he did.”<doc-sep>Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamSenators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission Police reform fight hinges on qualified immunity On The Money: White House counters with .7 trillion infrastructure proposal, GOP unimpressed | USDA to start loan forgiveness for thousands of minority farmers MORE (R-S.C.) and former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Sunday praised Meghan McCain's eulogy of her father, which included swipes at President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE. Graham and Lieberman, two close friends and longtime colleagues of the late Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainHannity tells Santorum he helped prevent Joy Reid from being fired Richard Hanania sees Trump as 2024 GOP nominee Why Republican politicians are sticking with Trump MORE (R-Ariz.), expressed pride in Meghan McCain's remarks at a memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral on Saturday. Graham said he was "totally OK" with McCain's remarks, during which she declared "America is already great" and condemned "cheap rhetoric." ADVERTISEMENT "She’s a beautiful, talented young lady. She is her father’s daughter. If you say something bad about her dad you will know it," Graham said. "She was grieving for the father she adored." Lieberman, meanwhile, called himself a "very proud uncle" after listening to McCain's speech. "She’s grieving, and yet by the nature of his life, she’s called on to make a very public, global statement," Lieberman said. "But she did it, and she did it magnificently." Lieberman complimented McCain on her directness, saying it reminded him of her father's style. “She is her father’s daughter ... I am just so proud of the young lady she has become,” Sen. Lindsey Graham says of Meghan McCain https://t.co/sPX1n2oawR #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/rTaZs7vzbt — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 2, 2018 Lieberman and Graham were among dozens of current and former officials from across party lines who attended Saturday's memorial service for John McCain. Former Presidents Obama and George W. Bush delivered eulogies at the event, while Trump visited his golf course. The senator died on Aug. 25 at age 81, a year after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Even after he returned to Arizona for treatment, he remained one of Trump's sharpest critics. The two men had an icy relationship, which extended past McCain's death. Trump endured criticism last week after he waited nearly 48 hours to issue a proclamation recognizing McCain's death and ordering flags be lowered to half-staff. He eventually issued a statement expressing "respect" for the late senator's service.<doc-sep>
Speaking at John McCain’s memorial service Saturday, Joe Lieberman celebrated the Arizona senator’s public life, their friendship and, inadvertently, McCain’s decades-long fight to weaken the influence of money and special interests in Washington. Lieberman, a Democrat, and McCain, a Republican, were best friends in the Senate, hawks who stood together across party lines on questions of global intervention and national security, core values Lieberman highlighted. They also traveled to conflict zones and geopolitical hot spots together for years, a tradition that Lieberman wove through the eulogy, pulling examples that spoke to McCain’s character and sense of humor. ”One of John’s favorite cities in the world was Jerusalem, and one of his favorite things to do there was to stand on the balcony with Lindsey [Graham] and me of our hotel looking out at the old city and discussing all of the religious and political history that happened there over the centuries,” Lieberman said. McCain, he said, even came around to his decision not to run for reelection in 2012 because of the outside chance it might mean more trips to Jerusalem. “You know,” Lieberman recalled McCain saying, “I’ve been thinking if you go out into the private sector, you’re going to make some more money, and then you can afford to buy a second home in Jerusalem that has an extra room for me with a balcony where we can look out at that city and its history.” McCain was needling his friend for cashing in. It was funny because it’s true. Lieberman left office and began lobbying for various interests. He also joined the white-collar crime group at the law firm Kasowitz, Benson & Torres. Lieberman was criticized last year when he went to Capitol Hill to introduce President Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, without disclosing that the firm had done extensive — and expensive — work for Donald Trump. Lieberman didn’t seem embarrassed to bring up his new line of work Saturday. He even revisited it a second time during the eulogy, describing how McCain was still goading him about it years later. Lieberman recounted what McCain said to him several times after falling ill: “Joey, have you made enough money yet to buy that place in Jerusalem?” McCain would say when Lieberman would visit. Lieberman would reply, “Not yet, Johnny, but I’m getting closer.” The crowd chuckled. Lieberman’s description of his post-Senate life shows how ordinary the system of money and influence is to political insiders. Members of Congress take money from lobbyists to fund their campaigns, and then when they retire, they often walk through the revolving door to K Street, where a lucrative lobbying job awaits with deep-pocketed special interests. Professors at Georgia State University and the University of Exeter, in the UK, tracked members of Congress from 1976 to 2012 and found that 28 percent of Republican senators and 25 percent of Democratic senators became lobbyists once they retired. Notorious superlobbyist Jack Abramoff used the promise of lucrative lobbying jobs to get lawmakers to do his bidding. He’d get members of Congress to get earmarks and other legislative items for his clients and would wink and nod (or explicitly promise) members of Congress a cushy, high-paying job at a lobbying firm if they did it. McCain had already been pushing to change the rules around the revolving door when Abramoff was arrested in 2005 and Congress passed a bill that put in place a number of new safeguards. Post-Abramoff, lawmakers had to wait longer before lobbying, they couldn’t go on trips paid for by lobbyists (another policy McCain long supported), and they couldn’t sit down to eat fancy meals with a lobbyist (though they can still eat anything that fits on a toothpick). McCain was the leading Republican voice on campaign finance reform for years, well before it was a hot topic on the trail as it is now. He understood that even the perception of corruption causes the public to lose faith in government. And he understood it would require bipartisanship to get any changes through Congress. He worked on a bill with Democrat Russ Feingold called the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which sought to close loopholes and tighten donor limits. Even though it didn’t strive to fundamentally upend the system, it was arguably a triumph for its day. The Supreme Court struck down pieces of the law in a series of cases, including Citizens United in 2010, which effectively killed it.