Will The Real McCain Please Stand Up?

The "straight talk" John McCain of 2000 is a distant memory compared to his current neocon-lite incarnation. He was supposed to be the maverick, the anti-politician. No he's just another career politician who just happens to be less odious than some of his brethren. His only big saving grace now is his no-compromise battle against torture... a battle that is only necessary because of the pro-torture President he campaigned for last year against his friend John Kerry. You know, the same President who smeared him and his wife and child in 2000.

Arianna Huffington looks at his Meet The Press appearance this weekend and wonders what happened to the old McCain. The new McCain praises the "good job" in Iraq, endorses intelligent design, meets with Jerry Falwell, and supports limiting the right to habeas corpus. Arianna examines his latest appearance:
Russert Watch: Where's the Real McCain?

The marquee guest was John McCain. Or, should I say, "John McCain." The guy who showed up on Meet the Press this morning looked like McCain, but didn't sound like McCain. What made the experience all that much stranger for me is that right after watching Meet the Press, I had breakfast with McCain's campaign finance reform partner, Senator Russ Feingold. Feingold had been on a visit to Iraq with McCain, and his fearless assessment of the reality there made it all that much harder to stomach the equivocations and rationalizations of the new and definitely not improved McCain.

If today's show was any indication, the Straight Talk Express has gone seriously off the road...

And Sen. McCain states in that appearance that Rep. John Murtha calling for withdrawal/redeployment of U.S. forces in Iraq is not because Murtha knows it's in the best interest of our nation's security, but because he's gotten "too emotional" about the war. Murtha, you fucking pussy!!

The full quote: "I think he has become too emotional and understandably so. He goes to funerals. He goes, as many of us do, out to Walter Reed, and he sees the price of war. And I think that that has had some effect on him…"

I suppose, Senator, that's why the President's apathetic approach has been so very successful, no?