The End of the Affair

September 16th, 2008 by TRex @ 9:20 am| Posted in 2008 Race, Cap'n Mac |

I thought you were special,
I thought you were special,
I thought you were special…

Angry Left Wing Blogger Joe Klein points us to the sad, sorry spectacle of Richard Cohen mopping up the embarrassing mess left behind by the implosion of his Man-Crush on Grampa McCrashypants.

Cohen: McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains — his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that’s all — but just as honorably. No more, though.

“Admirals of the shining sea”?  Ugh.  Richard, how many times have we asked you not to whack off to Master and Commander while you’re at the computer?  Both hands on the keyboard, please.

I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician’s lap.

Not so.

Snort.  Since when?  Last Sunday?  Did you alert CNN’s John King that the statute of limitations has run out on lap time with Senator McLame?

What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people.

“Young” to Cohen meaning anyone who only just got their AARP card.

When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story — that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.

Right.  “Integrity”.  Which is what led him to cheat on and dump the mother of his children for a wealthy debutante, which brought him in third from the bottom at his class at Annapolis, which is what has caused him to stock his campaign to the rafters with corporate lobbyists and failed CEO’s.

McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir — the person in whose hands he would leave the country — is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

Here, Cohen.  You can borrow my hankie.  Do you need some alone time?  I can fix you a nice hot cup of chamomile tea if you like.

But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can — as he did in South Carolina — renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won’t work. Karl Marx got one thing right — what he said about history repeating itself. Once is tragedy, a second time is farce. John McCain is both.

Ouch, that’s pretty harsh.

Let this be a lesson to you, O Ye Whyte Boomer Presse Corps.  A politician is a politician and a Maverick is just an old Ford clunker that had its glory days in the 70’s.

Okay maybe John McCain is a Maverick.

But while you puzzle out that conundrum, I leave you with this reminder (Via Wolcott via Moe) of happier times:

Ah, the days of swine and roses…