As a Canadian, I grew up watching Liberals, Conservatives, and Democrats in our Political system. Now that I am in the US, you can’t help to be glued to the current political landscape.
What is telling is how great leadership crosses party, community and different phases of life.
There is a great opportunity to learn when icons pass and reflect for yourself how you would like to be remembered when you are gone.
Two Statements below from Barrack Obama and George W. Bush.
Obama:
“John McCain and I were members of different generations, came from completely different backgrounds, and competed at the highest level of politics,” Obama, 57, wrote. “But we shared, for all our differences, a fidelity to something higher — the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed.
The statement continued: “We saw our political battles, even, as a privilege, something noble, an opportunity to serve as stewards of those high ideals at home, and to advance them around the world. We saw this country as a place where anything is possible — and citizenship as our patriotic obligation to ensure it forever remains that way.”
Obama’s statement went on to reference McCain’s military service — and the five years he spent in captivity as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
“Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did,” Obama wrote. “But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt. Michelle and I send our most heartfelt condolences to Cindy and their family.”
Bush:
KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE — “Some lives are so vivid, it is difficult to imagine them ended. Some voices are so vibrant, it is hard to think of them stilled. John McCain was a man of deep conviction and a patriot of the highest order. He was a public servant in the finest traditions of our country. And to me, he was a friend whom I’ll deeply miss. Laura and I send our heartfelt sympathies to Cindy and the entire McCain family, and our thanks to God for the life of John McCain.”
Colin
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