Freed from Republican party infighting by his date with mortality, Sen. John McCain didn't mince words during a speech last night at the National Constitution Center, where he was awarded the Liberty Medal.
"To fear the world we have organized and led the three quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last, best hope of earth, for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems, is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history," McCain said to prolonged applause.
He took a direct shot at Trump's embrace of white nationalism.
"We live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil. We are the custodians of those ideals at home and their champion abroad. We've done great good in the world. That leadership has had its costs, but we have become incomparably powerful and wealthy as we did. We have a moral obligation to continue in our just cause and we would bring more than shame on ourselves if we don't."
And the best thing of all? He never mentioned Trump by name.
