A surreal encounter with John McCain

WEEKEND READ: A testy brush with the mercurial maverick who might have changed history, but for a few unlucky breaks

I first really noticed John McCain during the 2000 US election, in which the Republican establishment identified a different preferred candidate early on — but the “maverick” was having none of it. A former Navy pilot shot down by the North Vietnamese, who survived five years of captivity, two of them in solitary confinement, he was not impressed with a…