One of the more interesting subplots of this year's Presidential campaign has been watching the metamorphosis of John McCain from celebrated war hero, to garden variety sleazy, lying, win-at-all-costs politician. Apparently I'm not the only one who's noticed this. The Sunday morning talking news monkeys were all yapping about how McCain seems to be going back on his promise months ago to run a "clean" campaign, leaving the dirt in the sandbox.
Uhmmm, yeah, so much for that one. And finally, after months of letting it ride, the MSM seems to be catching the switcheroo.
It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely perch for John McCain to be shamed for his increasingly hard-edged and truth-stretching campaign than the middle seat on “The View.”It's pretty funny to me that some are seeing this interview on The View as an attack on Cotton Hill. As if he can't hold his own in a circle full of Chatty Cathies.
Yet on Friday morning, there sat the Republican nominee – a politician who has built an all but saintly reputation for “straight talk” over the years – caught in a vise between Joy Behar and Barbara Walters and getting a lecture from each on honesty.
“They’re lies,” Behar said of two recent lines of attack from the McCain campaign
“By the way, you yourself said the same thing about putting lipstick on a pig,” interjected Walters as a defensive McCain struggled to respond.
The again, after the way he cancelled a CNN interview a few weeks back because he didn't like the way Campbell Brown grilled one of his surrogates, I guess we've figured out the War Hero's Achilles: women with opinions.
McCain’s tactics are drawing the scorn of many in the media and organizations tasked with fact-checking the truthfulness of campaigns. In recent weeks, Team McCain has been described as dishonorable, disingenuous and downright cynical.Indeed, for a guy whom the GOP painted as a philanderer with an (gasp!) illegitimate black child (as if a black child is somehow less honorable) in 2000, McCain sure seems to have tossed the "respect and honor" card right out the window. Trailing in the polls and having zero issues to stand on tend to do that to a guy.
A series of ads – ranging from accusations that Barack Obama backed teaching sex education to Illinois kindergartners to charges that Obama called Sarah Palin a lipstick-wearing pig – have provoked a cascade of criticism of McCain’s tactics.
The furor presents a breathtaking contrast to McCain’s image as a kind of anti-politician who plays fair, disdains politics as usual and has never forgotten how his 2000 presidential campaign was incinerated by a series of loathsome dirty tricks in the South Carolina primary.
The saddest part of all this is that McCain used to be so likable. He was a guy who was so at odds with his party that he was considered taking up John Kerry's offer to be his running mate in 2004. He was mean, crotchety, and independent thinking. And he probably was the best non-celebrity guest host in the history of SNL.
Dang, what happened to that guy?
All the wit and likability has dissipated, and all we're left with is some angry old guy who is so lustful of the Number One Spot that he's pulled back on virtually every non-GOP tenet he once held. And perhaps worst of all, he's resorted to the same Bush/Rove lie/smear/kill tactics that he once decried as unfair.
Even Karl "Many Chins, Many Chiiiins!" Rove said as much yesterday.
When you strip all the things that once made him unique, even admirable, there's not much left.
Nothing but an empty suit.
Question: Have you also noticed McCain's transformation from Maverick to world class A-hole?!?
Why McCain is going so negative, so often [Politico]
