The Many Seductions of Senator Suck Up

The straight talk express is alive and well.

The maverick lives.

The man won't sell his soul.

Are we talking about Senator John McCain? THE Mini me Bush frontrunner for
'08? THAT John McCain? Could have fooled me.

I distinctly remember McCain backing away from his demand that Rummy resign.
I remember McCain embracing Bush, reneging on tax cuts to say they're a great
idea and now saying YES! to all things Bush. Even ignoring that the man you're
sucking up to defamed your wife and family, not to mention called you a crazy
person and made you lose the presidential primary that would have made you president
the first time around.

But you can definitely tell that the traditional media has caught McCain fever.
They're rooting for him. They want him to make his move. After all, he's earned
it, right?

Sen. John McCain likes the moral high ground, and he takes palpable pleasure in delivering zingers to errant Russians, Iranians and Europeans, as he did at a conference here last weekend. But as the apparent front-runner in the 2008 presidential race, McCain is spending more of his time in the bog of American politics, and it's no picnic. McCain's critics have accused him of playing a game of political Twister the past few months. When he accepted a speaking invitation from Jerry Falwell, the polarizing prince of the Christian right, liberals saw it as a betrayal of values. When he voted to make President Bush's tax cuts permanent, despite his own past warnings about the country's fiscal mess, budget balancers attacked him as a hypocrite. (snip) The most polarizing issue for the country is the Iraq war. Here, as on other fronts, McCain tries to bridge the extremes. He has been one of the sharpest critics of the administration's strategy in Iraq, arguing loudly since 2003 that there weren't enough U.S. troops to stabilize the country. He voiced the generals' anger at Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld long before they went public with their dissent. But at the same time, McCain has backed President Bush and the basic U.S. mission in Iraq. Indeed, he still favors putting in more troops, even though he recognizes that is now “like saying, 'I hope it snows in Gila Bend, Arizona.' ” A measure of McCain's loyalty to Bush on Iraq is that he won't rule out becoming secretary of defense if Rumsfeld goes. “I would have to assess where I can be most effective,” he said, adding: “It's awfully hard to say no to the president of the United States.” A Man Who Won't Sell His Soul

It's awfully hard to say no to the president of the United States?

That comment explains so much, doesn't it?

It's driven home by the fact that Senator John McCain evidently can't say no
to Bush's born again constituency either. The same crowd you once shamed. We've
known for a long time that McCain is a presidential suck up, but when he laid
down for Jerry Falwell that was one swallow too much. In doing so John McCain
has said that he's willing to represent certain constituencies over others.
We all know how conservative McCain is, but what we've also learned through
the unmasking of his naked ambition is that he'll sell out to anyone who can
make him king.

Sound like anyone else you know?

Nobody likes a suck up.