In the courage-free zone known as Congress, McCain showed that principle and politics can mix at the highest levels. And if it wasn’t often enough, well, he would be the first to admit it. Characteristically, he described his pick of Palin as “another mistake that I made.”

At his best, he was in a league of his own. Watch the video from the 2008 campaign of a rally where a man says “we’re scared of an Obama presidency.” McCain challenges the man, saying of Obama: “He is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared as president of the United States.”

Then a woman speaks up and says she can’t trust Obama because he’s an Arab.

“No, ma’am,” McCain says. “He’s a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

There was, of course, another side to McCain, for he was a complex, contradictory figure. He betrayed his first wife, Carol, who had raised his three children by herself while he was in Vietnamese prisons. After returning home, while still living with Carol, he began pursuing his current wife, Cindy, who was young, beautiful and rich.

(When Cindy thanked him for sending flowers that had just arrived, with a card signed “John,” he impishly said it was nothing. Years later, she discovered that they had been from another man named John.)

When he married Cindy, his children were angry (only at him; no one blamed Cindy) and none attended the wedding, but everyone forgave him soon enough. Not least because John McCain was always his own severest critic. He was contrite, and he blamed himself rather than others.