Why not remember all the good things John McCain achieved?

There have been some ugly comments recently about Sen. John McCain. With the senator at home in Arizona fighting brain cancer, a young White House aide reportedly told colleagues they need not worry about his objections to CIA nominee Gina Haspel because, "It doesn't matter, he's dying anyway."

At the same time, a retired three-star Air Force general suggested McCain cooperated with his North Vietnamese captors in his five-plus years in captivity, saying McCain's nickname was "songbird John" - a baseless charge that dates back to dirty tricks against McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign.

The slanders set off vicious battles on Twitter, with still more insults to McCain. In response, many of the senator's allies and supporters rushed to his defense.

McCain is having a moment, even as he deals with a terrible illness and is not expected to return to Washington. Next week, he will release what is being portrayed as a valedictory book, "The Restless Wave." He is also the subject of an upcoming HBO documentary. Given that, it is probably fair to say that arguments about McCain, both civil and not, will continue to the very end, and beyond.

Why? Because of the sheer complexity of John McCain. He has lived a big life with accomplishments few can match. But in the course of that life, he has also antagonized some who should be allies.

McCain's years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam will always define his biography. He showed courage and endurance under conditions most Americans cannot imagine. He is rightly celebrated for that.

But McCain's valor came in a war America did not win and which remains divisive to this day.

In politics, McCain's political career has been marked by a sometimes-testy relationship with Republican Party doctrine and voters. In the 2000 GOP presidential primaries, his defeat of then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary led to a nasty showdown in South Carolina. Bush won, McCain lost, and some in the press came away with the impression that Bush had smeared McCain. On the other hand, some Republicans came away with the impression that McCain, who styled himself a "maverick," would go out of his way to irritate his party.

McCain would run a more conventional campaign in 2008, showing extraordinary drive and resilience.

But after the dismal failures of two Bush terms - a major war started by mistake and an economic meltdown at the end - in the general election, McCain found himself running in the face of perhaps the strongest political headwinds ever. Toss in a charismatic and history-making Democratic opponent, and there was no way McCain could win.

Still, McCain remained a factor in presidential politics. In 2015, when Donald Trump attacked McCain - "I like people who weren't captured" - it set off a firestorm. Trump, who avoided service in Vietnam, defamed a man with a hugely distinguished record. Still, Trump's words did not do terrible damage to his candidacy, in part because a significant number of Republican primary voters had mixed feelings about McCain.

McCain's final act of angering Republicans came in July 2017, when he cast the decisive vote to kill the GOP effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Many Republicans felt it was a bad bill, and any lawmaker would have good reason to oppose it, yet some still saw McCain's vote as a way of getting back at Trump.

So McCain has a war record of pure heroism. He has a political record of real achievement, but also perhaps more than his share of the controversy that goes with politics.

So which to emphasize in what might be McCain's final days? Here's a thought: Why not dwell on the good, especially since it was so good? John McCain lived a great, patriotic life, doing more in service to the United States than his critics, or almost anyone else. When he dies, why not remember that?

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