McCain Had a '60s Radical Friend of His Own

John McCain has been busily exploiting and distorting Barack Obama’s passing relationship with '60s radical Bill Ayers, but McCain himself had a much closer relationship with another '60s radical, David Ifshin, writes Joe Klein of Time. Ifshin was an anti-Vietnam radical whom many people accused of treason after he flew to Hanoi and denounced US pilots as “war criminals.”

In 1984 McCain gave a speech demonizing Ifshin—then a top adviser for Walter Mondale—but regretted it because, he told Klein, “I didn’t know the guy.” He later met Ifshin, and apologized, and the two forged a lasting friendship. McCain even spoke at his funeral, saying, “David taught me a lot about the meaning of courage.” (More Election 2008 stories.)