More on McCain

Excerpt from Richard Fontaine’s “The Death of Political Courage” in The Atlantic today re: John McCain:

The senator loved storytelling as much as having fun. On a visit to Canada’s Yukon Territory, an official mentioned offhand that the poet Robert Service lived nearby during the early 1900s. Within minutes McCain disappeared, having jumped into the car of a friendly local in order to see the old residence first-hand. Upon his return, McCain explained that while in solitary confinement during the Vietnam War, his neighbor taught him, through their shared wall, poems memorized while in school. Among these was Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” which McCain learned via the “tap code” American prisoners of war used to communicate. Now in Whitehorse decades later, the senator proceeded to recite the poem in full – both verbally and then by tapping out its code.