I wonder when McCain talked to Obama about the eulogy, if they discussed what he wanted?
This article linked below has a little info which I have posted but not much detail. I kept wondering today as I listened to Obama how much, or even if, they discussed content and flavor and what McCain may have said about why he wanted Obama to speak, or what he wished for him so say, or if they even talked about that. Or if just Obama and Bush speaking was itself the message, because obviously that in itself was a powerful message. I just found this whole thing fascinating and hope that someone was there listening to that phone call and it comes out at some point. But either way, it was extraordinary.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/politics/john-mccain-barack-obama-george-bush-memorial-service/index.html
Inside McCain's surprise eulogy invitation to Obama
It was a day in early April when Barack Obama received an unexpected call from McCain, who was battling brain cancer and said he had a blunt question to ask: Would you deliver one of the eulogies at my funeral?
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So, I've been wondering whether McCain and Obama had somehow developed an intimate relationship after Obama left office, if they had been having quiet conversations over the last year or two that haven't been publicly discussed as McCain neared the end of his journey.
It turns out, after talking to several friends of both men this week, their relationship isn't intimate at all, but rather one rooted in mutual respect and a shared sense of alarm at today's caustic political climate. Their telephone call on that April day was first arranged by advisers, not McCain simply dialing up Obama as he would do with his legion of friends, a sign they were hardly tight.
In fact, the two have spoken by phone only a couple of times since Obama left the White House, aides to both men say, most notably last summer when Obama reached out after McCain cast the deciding vote to salvage the Affordable Care Act. He thanked him. The call was brief.
snip
"I think it is John McCain imparting a lesson in civility by asking the two men who defeated him to speak, as an example to America that differences in political views and contests shouldn't be so important that we lose our common bonds and the civility that is, or used to be, a hallmark of American democracy," Duprey said.
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama in his campaigns and in the White House, said the clear message McCain is sending is "about our shared heritage, our shared trust of this democracy that transcends party and transcends tribe."
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