What he discovered even before announcing Mr. Hagel's appointment is that the former senator burned many bridges with his Republican colleagues, in part with his outspoken opposition to the Iraq war, despite voting in 2002 to authorize military action, and to the 2008 surge when President George W. Bush was still in office.
The Illinois senator was badly burned in the process.
The day the bill crashed and burned, Senator McCain blamed opposition from his own Republican Party in an article in Congressional Quarterly: "I just think the opposition to it was very strong," he said.
Senator Hillary Clinton has been burned twice lately by so-called bundlers — aspiring power brokers who harvest large amounts of smaller donations and bundle them into irresistibly giant packages.
But the athletic pursuits of a president are typically photographed only when strategically beneficial, with the lesson of Senator John Kerry on a windsurfer burned into the minds of political handlers.
"We're heading in the wrong direction," said Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, where 150 homes burned in last year's fires.
The problem with the issue is that obviously immigration as a larger issue is a very touchy subject in the US right now, one that Senator McCain talked in our interview about him being personally burned by it.
Two state senators have proposed a bill to stop the project, which has already burned through about $2 billion of its $3 billion budget.
A 26-year-old woman was charged Tuesday with setting a small fire in January that burned down a 3,500-year-old 3,500-year-old 3,500-year-oldown as toweringtor.
"We are all heartbroken about the situation," said Mike Johnston, a state senator who worked with Mr. Roberts to transform the ruins of the Holly Square Shopping Center, burned down by Crips gang members in 2008, into basketball courts and a soccer field.
