"The death of John McCain will leave Congress without perhaps its loudest voice in support of the robust internationalism that has defined the country's security relations since World War II."
Certainly, the passing of the senator whose life story will dominate the news until he is buried at his alma mater, the Naval Academy, on Sunday, leaves America's interventionists without their greatest champion.
No one around has the prestige or media following of McCain.
And the cause he championed, compulsive intervention in foreign quarrels to face down dictators and bring democrats to power, appears to be a cause whose time has passed.
Comment: McCain's true legacy is carnage, mass suffering and profits for the war machine. But worry not, there are a hundred more just like him willing to step into his shoes and champion the goals of empire to the American public - shortly before the nation goes utterly and irretrievably down the proverbial tubes.