BREAKING NEWS: John McCain Has Died. Here’s His Great and Terrible Record

This is actually a pretty good summary of all the good and bad.

John McCain was cool back in 2000. 
See, for example, this Washington Post article from 2000 about McCain's role in the Shadow Convention.
McCain and the Unconventional Convention

Would Sen. John McCain be the keynote speaker of an alternative political convention with a distinct far-left aroma that intends to ridicule his Republican Party and is partially financed by the archenemy of the war on drugs, billionaire global financier George Soros? That is McCain's intent, even as other Republicans fall off the list of speakers.
McCain is the star attraction of the July 30 opening of the "shadow" convention to be held in Philadelphia while the Republicans meet there beginning July 31. That makes him the only speaker who will address both a major party convention and one of the two alternative gatherings arranged by political gadfly Arianna Huffington in Philadelphia and (shadowing the Democrats) in Los Angeles. McCain will find himself sharing the podium with such left-wing GOP-bashers as ice cream (Ben & Jerry's) maker Ben Cohen and comedian Al Franken.

I remember this.  I was in Philadelphia that week for the protests,  and I remember people talking about McCain's speech at the Shadow Convention.

In 2005, McCain was also cool when he stood against torture.  Back in 2005 I quoted Mr Guam on the subject on this blog. 

Mr. Guam does an excellent job of framing the debate over Bush's threatened Veto of the McCain sponsored bill to end forbid torture by the U.S. military:
Sen. McCain is a highly respected Vietnam War veteran who served almost five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. President Bush is a veteran of the Texas Air National Guard for which he did no fighting whatsoever. The irony of a war hero fighting against the use of torture for information and a president with no war experience fighting for the use of torture as executive privilege becomes fairly evident.

But in 2008, when McCain was running against Obama, I hated him. 
All throughout 2008 I frequently linked to anti-McCain articles and Youtube videos on my "Link of the Day" feature. 
For posts from that year in which I talk about McCain in the main body, see: Thoughts on the Presidential Election, and Obligatory Post-Election Post.

See also my review of the movie Game Change.