CNN’s Avlon Likens McCain Farewell Message to George Washington’s: ‘It Really Does Track’

EXCERPT:

BERMAN: "John Avlon, you wrote about George Washington’s farewell address. There are similarities here.”
AVLON; “Actually, it really does track and I think the parallels were something not studied but imbued by Senator McCain. But it really follows the Washington farewell pattern that was later echoed in farewell addresses like Eisenhower. There’s a thanks to a nation for a lifetime of service in war and peace. There’s an admission of making mistakes but hoping that an effort in honorable service will outweigh them. But more importantly, there’s a warning to future generations based on the lessons of his life and bedrock American values. And you saw that again and again. A plea to the fact that we are a nation based on ideas and ideals, not blood and soil. Saying we need to rise above tribal rivalries that have caused violence throughout the world because America is the antidote to that. A warning essentially that the demagogues’ calling card of ‘us against them’ is the opposite of ‘E pluribus unum,’ ‘Out of many one,’ America’s motto . So there is this implicit and fairly clear rebuke to President Trump, but it’s really a measure of how outside the bounds many of our political debates have become."