Ride The Straight Talk Express

Reading the public statements of the pander-panda John McCain is really enough to make you sick. The guy blames Gen. Casey for implementing a failed policy that he endorsed. He's blaming the military after saying for years how wrong it is to blame the military. He cites Casey's leadership as the reason that things have gotten worse in Iraq although he claimed for years that things were getting better. He says you can't support the troops unless you support the mission, and yet he claims that he hasn't supported the mission and has argued for additional troops all along (because he supports the troops). He criticizes Europe for not following through in Afghanistan after supporting the effort to essentially leave Afghanistan in 2002 when the Taliban and Al Qaeda were on the run. He's delivering the keynote speech for a creationist group called The Discovery Institute and is being shepherded around a religious broadcasters' convention by Jerry Falwell, the man he called an "agent of intolerance" not too long ago.

The man doesn't have a single principle left, nor does he have a single vision for leadership other than that he should be the leader. And Arizonans, who have seen him stray from anything resembling a core belief first-hand, are pissed off about it.

A new recall drive targets Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a top contender for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.

Organizers oppose McCain's continued support of the unpopular Iraq war and consider him complicit in what they perceive as the erosion of American civil liberties associated with the war on terror.

"For the most part, he's been all right, but he's supposed to be representing Arizona, and right now he seems to be just representing himself," said William Crum, treasurer of Americans for Integrity and Justice, the Glendale-based recall committee. "He's got tunnel-vision for the presidency." [...]

The recall group faces long odds. It must collect 381,696 valid petition signatures by June 13 to force a statewide vote. That is 25 percent of all votes cast in the 2004 Senate election. Although McCain is a federal officeholder not bound by the Arizona Constitution's recall provisions, he has signed a voluntary pledge on file with the Secretary of State's Office agreeing to resign immediately if defeated in a recall election.

This isn't that likely to get very far, but it's significant to how times have changed for Mr. Straight Talk. Note that the key quote here isn't about McCain's support for an unpopular war, but that he no longer even pretends to represent his constituents. Nobody believes a word this guy is saying anymore. He'll be President only if the franchise is denied to everyone but journalists.