Senator John McCain was awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Medal in a ceremony that also featured former Vice President Joe Biden, who presented the award to the Arizona politician. After accepting the medal, McCain warned against the rise of "half-baked, spurious nationalism" in a speech. Following is a transcript of the video.
Joe Biden: Ladies and gentlemen, Jeffrey Rosen, where are you?
Joe Biden: I'm not going to put it around his neck because he gets animated and I'm worried it's going to hurt him speaking.
John McCain: To fear the world we have organized and led the three quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last, best hope of earth, for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems, is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.
John McCain: We live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil. We are the custodians of those ideals at home and their champion abroad. We've done great good in the world. That leadership has had its costs, but we have become incomparably powerful and wealthy as we did. We have a moral obligation to continue in our just cause and we would bring more than shame on ourselves if we don't.