johnnie’s feet of clay

Ahhhh, Johnny, we knew you after all.

John McCain long has been one of those rare politicians whose career mirrors the crucial sentiment from the last reel of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

John McCain’s legend always has transcended his mere fact.

Yes, John McCain is a decorated war hero – a survivor of the infamous Hanoi Hilton. He deserves honor and respect for the many sacrifices he has made for his country.

But when it comes to politics, John McCain is a neo-con hiding behind a populist image. And like any good neo-con, ends always seem to justify means.

During Campaign 2000, McCain was savaged by George W. Bush and Karl Rove. “Turd Blossom” used a racist push poll to imply to South Carolinians that McCain had an illegitimate black child – using the fact that McCain and his wife had adopted an orphan from Southeast Asia. The campaign of a man who went AWOL from the Texas National Guard questioned the service of a man who spent years as a prisoner of war. They suggested through backchannels that those years in captivity had left him mentally unstable.

That treatment by Bush/Cheney 2000 outraged many – especially John Kerry, who would be subjected to much the same treatment four years later.

So why, many ask, has McCain cozied up to George W. Bush more tightly than Monica Lewinsky on a late night near the Oval Office? Why would a man who experienced torture, who claims to represent a higher moral authority on the subject of torture, bail on an agreement with the White House over torturing prisoners?

The most obvious answer would be a Faustian bargain with Rove, et al, in advance of a run for the Presidency in 2008. And that answer appears to be a good one.

This weekend, facing an embarrassing loss to Sen. Bill Frist in a Republican Presidential straw poll of some 2,000 GOP activists from 26 states in Memphis for a meeting of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, McCain moved to poison the well by urging supporters NOT to vote for him.

No, he told them – write in the name George W. Bush.

That’s right. For a straw poll ahead of an election two and a half years off, John McCain wanted his supporters to write in the name of the one man in the country who is least eligible to run – our lame duck president, Chimpy McSmirk.

"For the next three years, with our country at war, he's our president and the only one who needs our support."

I will now pause so that you, gentle reader, may slap your head with the palm of your hand and say “What?!?!?”

The word “Desperate” comes to mind – and this from a man who dubbed his campaign bus “The Straight Talk Express.”

More soon.