In the last Presidential Debate McCain accused Obama of mistaking him for George Bush and suggested that if he wanted to run against George Bush, he should have run 4 years ago. Well perhaps McCain, if he was truly a maverick who put his "country first", should have taken up John Kerry's offer, 4 years ago, to put him on the bottom of his presidential ticket.
McCain says he's not George Bush, suggesting he's the change from George Bush that the country needs. Well, 4 years ago, he had the chance to help put George Bush out of office and join John Kerry's presidential ticket.
At that time, perhaps with the war going badly and the country still doing reasonably, economically, he could have helped Kerry win the election, make a stand on his fellow Vietnam veteran's "swiftboating", and helped steer the country in the right direction. If McCain was unhappy with the status quo at that time - as he has been insisting this year - he could have helped avert the 4 years of disastrous policies our nation has endured by accepting Kerry's offer of becoming the Vice Presidential candidate on a bipartisan ticket.
Instead of putting his country first, he put his presidential ambitions first - choosing to "roll the dice" on the effects that another 4 years of George Bush's policies would have on the country, and instead focus on his own presidential bid - 4 years ahead. He made the decision to make peace with the "agents of intolerance", to sell his soul to the far right, toeing the party line on torture policy - a policy we have recently found to have been endorsed by the highest levels of this administration - immigration policy, and the tax cuts for the ultra-rich.
McCain had his chance to put his country first. Instead he decided to walk in lock-step with his former nemesis, George W. Bush, and hope for victory - not in Iraq - but in the Presidential Race of 2008.
Obama is right to run against McCain as another GWB. McCain had the opportunity to distance himself from the policies of Bush in 2004, but instead he decided to become more like him. Now he's trying to run away from that and insisting Obama not conflate he and Bush - "I'm not George Bush" he instsits. Well, to Obama, and most of us, that's a pretty hard distinction to make