2017
July
25
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

July 25, 2017
Error loading media: File could not be played
 
00:0000:0000:00
00:00
Clayton Collins
Director of Editorial Innovation

A lion of the Senate held the floor this afternoon.

After a procedural vote cleared the way for more debate over a swirl of would-be replacement health-care plans – and amid a distracting sideline play over the rough relationship between a president and his attorney general – Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona gave an address in which he cited the “necessity of compromise” and mutual trust. He decried tribalism.

“Our deliberations can still be important and useful,” he said, “but I think we can all agree that they haven't been overburdened by greatness lately."

He also hailed the institution in which he has worked for three decades, saying that “the problem-solving our system does make possible, the fitful progress it produces, and the liberty and justice it preserves, is a magnificent achievement.”

While Senator McCain has taken his share of hard lines, he is well loved by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. That has been reflected in the bipartisan outpouring since it was announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer.

He can be gruff. “But that is loved, too,” says Francine Kiefer, who covers Capitol Hill for the Monitor. “McCain once told me I had asked him the stupidest question he had ever heard,” Francine says. “I felt like I had arrived.”

The former POW is a renowned hawk, “not afraid to hold President Trump’s feet to the fire on Russia, or Syria,” Francine points out. He put out a strong statement on Syria just last week when he learned that Mr. Trump aimed to cut CIA funding for the rebels there.

Mostly, there’s been a tough artistry to his dealmaking. And McCain is for many a reminder of the place that professionalism, and focused passion, have in statecraft.


You've read 3 of 3 free articles. Subscribe to continue.

Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Oded Balilty/AP
Palestinian women pray at the Lion's Gate in Jerusalem on July 25, heeding a call from clerics to pray in the streets instead of inside the Al Aqsa Mosque compound until a dispute with Israel over security arrangements is settled.

Special Report

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Mothers and their children attend a meeting with a local nonprofit in a remote village in Madagascar. More than 90 women receive cash-transfer aid – a monthly stipend for food and immediate necessities – because they have at least one child under age 5 who is malnourished.

Survey shows an easing of judgment on same-sex marriage

SOURCE:

Public Religion Research Institute, Pew Research Center, Religion News Service

|
Jacob Turcotte/Staff

The Monitor's View


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Matt Dunham/AP
Chelsea pensioners John Kidman (l.) and Bill 'Spud' Hunt pose wearing virtual reality headsets at the launch of an exhibition inside 18th-century stables at the Household Cavalry Museum in London July 25. The exhibit uses virtual reality videos, along with diary accounts, audio, film, and photos, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the high-toll Battle of Passchendaele in World War I.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Lisa Andrews. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow’s installment of our famine series looks at Madagascar’s prioritization of child malnutrition in its broader battle with the effects of prolonged drought.   

Also, a heads-up: Consider joining us on Facebook tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time for a Monitor event: "Reimagining schools: Innovations for deeper learning." A production of our EqualEd team, it will be livestreamed from the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm. (This link will take you there.) 

Finally, here’s a quick, worthy pull from our archives in light of the tragic human-smuggling deaths in San Antonio: our series looking at solutions to human trafficking

More issues

2017
July
25
Tuesday
CSM logo

Why is Christian Science in our name?

Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that.

The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we’ve aimed “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.

Here, you’ll find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences – a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.

Explore values journalism About us