One need not canonize McCain to appreciate him. On the contrary, the fact he was a politician who wanted to win means that he is a better model for other politicians than a saint. He could trim when he had to and sometimes brawled against opponents for reasons not of principle but of power — or just because he harbored a grudge. Yet the former prisoner of war did all he could to live up to words he revered from Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor: "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." It is not easy to choose one's own way in ordinary life. It's even more difficult in politics. McCain will be long remembered because he kept faith with this obligation.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "One need not canonize McCain to appreciate him. On the contrary, the fact he was a politician who wanted to win means that he is a better model for other politicians than a saint. He could trim when he had to and sometimes brawled against opponents for reasons not of principle but of power — or just because he harbored a grudge. Yet the former prisoner of war did all he could to live up to words he revered from Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor: "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." It is not easy to choose one's own way in ordinary life. It's even more difficult in politics. McCain will be long remembered because he kept faith with this obligation." in the context of "The Fayetteville Observer in John McCain chose his own way (27 August 2018)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.