Suddenly the MSM is waking up to what all of us already knew... John McCain is a bitter, petulant, old, bigot. Below are some excerpts from some columns and blog posts that were written about the odious McCain over the weekend.
Let's begin with Dana Milbank of the Washington Post (hater of Liberals):
If John McCain gets any more hostile toward his Senate colleagues, they might consider having him go through the metal detector before he enters the Capitol.
Saturday's debate on the repeal of the "don't-ask-don't-tell" policy was only half an hour old when the Arizona Republican burst onto the floor from the cloakroom, hiked up his pants and stalked over to his friend Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Ignoring Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who had the floor, McCain hectored the men noisily for a few moments, waving his arms for emphasis.
When McCain finally stormed off, Durbin shook his head in exasperation and Lieberman smiled. A minute later, McCain returned - he had apparently remembered another element of his grievance - and resumed his harangue.
It turns out McCain's fury was stirred by a trifle - he had wanted more time for the debate, which the Democrats eventually gave him - but that was typical. It doesn't take much to set off McCain these days.
With these words, Milbank cements the view of McCain as an irascible, angry, and hostile man.
Over at Time Magazine, Joe Klein laments his old pal McCain's transformation:
McCain distinguished himself doubly this weekend, opposing the Dream Act and leading the opposition to "Don't Ask," despite the very public positions of his wife and daughter on the other side of the issue. I used to know a different John McCain, the guy who proposed comprehensive immigration reform with Ted Kennedy, the guy--a conservative, to be sure, but an honorable one--who refused to indulge in the hateful strictures of his party's extremists. His public fall has been spectacular, a consequence of politics--he "needed" to be reelected--and personal pique. He's a bitter man now, who can barely tolerate the fact that he lost to Barack Obama. But he lost for an obvious reason: his campaign proved him to be puerile and feckless, a politician who panicked when the heat was on during the financial collapse, a trigger-happy gambler who chose an incompetent for his vice president. He has made quite a show ever since of demonstrating his petulance and lack of grace.
What a guy.
Here is James Fallows musing at the "Mystery of John McCain."
I'll stress the incredible part, because much more than my colleagues I can remember when McCain seemed to be a potentially Eisenhower-ish, as opposed to an increasingly Bunning-like, figure in American public life. Broad-minded, tolerant, eager to bridge rather than open divides -- this was the way he seemed to so many people starting from his arrival in the Congress in the 1980s.
Seeing him now is surprising not simply because it reminds us: this man could be the sitting president, but also because it again raises the question, how did he end up this way? Even if his earlier identity had been artifice, what would be the payoff in letting it go?
I have been trying to think of a comparable senior public figure who, in the later stages of his or her career, narrowed rather than broadened his view of the world and his appeals to history's judgment. I'm sure there are plenty (on two minutes' reflection, I'll start with Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh), but the examples that immediately come to mind go the other way.
George C. Wallace, once a firebrand of segregation, eventually became a kind of racial-healing figure near the end of his troubled life. There was something similar in the very long and winding path of Strom Thurmond (or Robert Byrd). Or Teddy Kennedy, who sharpened the ideological edge of his rhetoric as the years went on, but who increasingly valued his ability to work with rather than against his Republican counterparts in the Senate. Barry Goldwater went through the same evolution from the opposite starting point. Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara, different kinds of peaceniks by the end. We know that for humanity in general, the passing years can often make people closed-minded and embunkered in their views. But for people in public life, it seems to me, surprisingly often the later years bring an awareness of the chanciness and uncertainty of life, the folly of bitterness, the long-term advantage of a big-tent rather than a purist approach.
John McCain seems intentionally to be shrinking his audience, his base, and his standing in history. It's unnecessary, and it is sad.
These stalwart members of the MSM, Milbank, Klein, and Fallows, really seem pained at the "loss" of their straight-talk express man-crush McCain. But Dennis G over at Balloon Juice put it best when he wrote:
As the grumpy old man from Arizona continues his ongoing campaign of incoherent rants, endless policy flip-flops, public tantrums over imagined slights and sputtering rage at just about everything and anyone—many in the media are wondering what happened to the "Maverick" they thought they knew and loved back in 1999.
The cognitive dissonance that John McCain is creating in Washington among the political and media class is palpable. It is a raw thing. The distress and confusion is moving into the open as more and more folks try to sort out what McCain is doing and why—and to reconcile that with the John McCain myths they created back in the 1990s.
I think that this is another example of the Beltway media being out of touch. I think that McCain has always been what he has now become. Steve Benen (who I just appreciate more and more every day) wrote about McCain yesterday. He did a terrific job of articulating what I think many who have watched McCain also believe about the man now:
Watching McCain rail endlessly yesterday was a genuinely painful experience. In one sense, he was practically embracing the caricature of himself, lashing out as a bitter, cantankerous ass. I kept expected McCain to start shaking his fist at clouds and demanding that children stay off his lawn.
But that's really not that unusual anymore, and it's only part of a larger picture. McCain wasn't just an angry old man yesterday; what we saw was darker and uglier. The Arizona senator on the floor yesterday, with a series of cringe-worthy tantrums, was hateful and filled with bile. McCain was even sarcastic at times, as if he almost relished the role.
This wasn't about policy. By all appearances, this was personal.
When we look back at the apartheid-loving segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s, most decent people see racists and misguided monsters. Yesterday, it seemed as if McCain decided, perhaps deliberately, that he wanted to be that guy for the 21st century. Why? I obviously can't read the conservative senator's mind, but it seemed to have something to with (a) his intense disgust for President Obama and anything he wants; and (b) his revulsion towards gay people.
McCain isn't only an angry old man; he is also a bigot. It needs to be said out loud.
Let's end with some of McCain's own words...