Mein GOTT twitter is frustrating:

Yeah, the problem here is Obama has not reached out enough.

Some of these guys never learn anything, ever. John McCain has never been a maverick. He has never been a major player in legislation- his only signature bill is McCain/Feingold, and that is due in large part out of guilt and an effort to rehabilitate himself (Keating Five, anyone?). He flips and flops depending on what is best for him, personally, at that very moment, and some talking head somewhere will excuse his lack of consistency as “John McCain being a maverick” or “John McCain being John McCain” or some other nonsense. For chrissakes, he put Palin in a position where she could have been a heartbeat away from the Presidency. That alone should tell you that John McCain is in it for himself, and himself only. That is all he cares about.

So put two and two together, guys. John McCain is looking at a very tough primary against Hayworth and Simcox, a Minuteman, and he senses he needs to run to the right to shore up his flank. The Obama White House didn’t “lose” John McCain, John McCain is just doing what he always does- looking out for himself.

In fact, you can almost bet that the next couple of months leading up to his primary, McCain will step up his criticisms of Obama, will become louder and more vocal and more strident, and will move to the right of his past stated positions and his alleged “core beliefs.” And you know what else you can bet on?

Some beltway bobblehead looking at McCain’s behavior and wondering- “Gee, what did the Obama administration do to piss off John McCain?”

Via the Washington Monthly, this WaPo piece on former McCain advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin, who is about to lose his health care, which contained this gem:

Despite his personal trials, however, Holtz-Eakin said his conviction on the hot-button issue of health care is unchanged. He believes that reform is needed, but that President Obama and congressional Democrats are going about it the wrong way. The system is “broken,” he said, but the bills now before Congress do not cut costs enough. On the campaign trail, Holtz-Eakin promoted McCain’s plan to eliminate the tax exemption for employer-sponsored health insurance and give tax credits to individuals to buy their own coverage.

Of the bills moving through Congress, Holtz-Eakin said: “I wish the policies were different, and I wish I could’ve somehow gotten us to a bipartisan place. I think McCain had the capacity to do that.

Will this myth of McCain’s bipartisanship ever stop? Putting aside the fact that he ran a disgusting and ugly campaign with amoral louts like Michael Goldfarb in charge of the campaign, and putting aside the fact that he gave us Sarah Palin, and putting aside the fact that McCain is an angry old fool with a mean streak a mile long, is there ANY DAMNED EVIDENCE AT ALL from the last year that any bipartisan solution could be found? The Republicans have yet to even release their health care plan, and have done nothing but propagate lies, foment unrest, and scream no. In the meantime, they are continuing their purge of anyone to the left of Dick Cheney.

So what exactly makes Holtz-Eakin think there is any way a bipartisan solution could be found. Or Obama, for that matter?

So glad he decided to chime in:

Wading into the debate on a national health care plan, Senator John McCain said on Sunday that one way for Democrats and Republicans to reach a compromise would be for President Obama to abandon a government-run insurance program for the nation’s 49 million uninsured.

Interviewed on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican and 2008 presidential candidate, said that a public plan would cause many Americans to lose their private health insurance. Although he was not asked to explain, opponents of a government-run plan have previously warned that many employers would scuttle private insurance for their workers if such a program were enacted.

“Certainly if you have it, you shouldn’t have to lose it,” Mr. McCain said of private insurance. “But under the president’s plan, you would have to lose it in my view because of the government option. I believe that one of the fundamentals for any agreement would be that the president abandon the government option.”

For those of you keeping track, John McCain had his health care taken care of by the government as a Navy brat. He then had his health care taken care of by the government when he was in Annapolis and his lengthy career in the Navy. He has had free health care his entire time in politics. But for a few years when he was a POW, and maybe some other years in between his Navy days and his first run for office, John McCain has had government funded health care as an option his entire life. His skin cancer was discovered at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Good enough for me, but not good enough for thee, I suppose.

Then again, there is nothing stopping you all from marrying a beer heiress, either.

They’ll never figure it out:

He ran for president last year as a “maverick” Republican and had a high-profile meeting with Barack Obama after the election, but Arizona Sen. John McCain has been a staunch Republican vote since failing to win the White House.

In fact, McCain is siding with his party this year on closely divided votes with greater frequency than at any other period in his 23-year Senate career, according to a CQ analysis of Senate votes.

***

McCain has participated in 196 of 199 Senate party unity votes, siding with the majority Republican position on all but nine of those votes. Like most Republicans, McCain voted “no” on the economic stimulus law and on Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

McCain led the Republican charge against numerous Democratic proposals this Congress, often acting as the lead sponsor of amendments outlining a Republican alternative. That was the case March 2, when the Senate by a vote of 32-63 rejected McCain’s substitute amendment to the fiscal 2009 omnibus appropriations act and again on April 2, when the Senate rejected McCain’s substitute to the fiscal 2010 budget resolution by a 38-60 vote.

Will the tire-swinging ever end? The reason McCain is behaving this way is simple- he is a mean, petty, bitter, angry man, and he is going to do everything he can to make Obama’s life hell. He didn’t like him before the campaign started, as they had a widely known feud over ethics reform, and then during the campaign it was repeatedly reported that he felt Obama did not deserve to be President, was not ready, and was openly contemptuous. The entire McCain campaign followed his lead, and that is why we had the idiocy of the last election- Michael Goldfarb and others were simply taking their lead from the top dog. We just recently learned that the Wasilla Wingnut didn’t even come up with the “pals around with terrorists nonsense”- that was direct from the campaign, with a green light from McCain. On top of all that, McCain’s volatile temper was widely discussed, and openly concerned fellow Republicans. Go google “McCain + trollop.”

I’ve had some recent disagreements with Matt Welch, but I highly recommend that everyone read his excellent book McCain: The Myth of a Maverick. You’ll learn that despite the fact that he serves up a mean barbecue, he is a mean and vindictive man with an explosive temper and has been for years. That he is leading the charge against Obama is not a return to his conservative principles, but just additional evidence that he is a small man who takes everything personally and the country is far better off without him in the White House.

This insider description of life inside the Madoff operation is a fascinating read, but this stuck out:

Did he think something was fishy? “It never dawned on me that Bernie was running a criminal operation down on the 17th floor. I thought he was just a quirky guy. Now, in hindsight there are a lot of things that point to illegal activities. The emails, for instance, were clearly handled that way so that nobody could access them. They didn’t want any record if someone got suspicious and wrote so to a colleague, for instance, or you pressed the search bar and the word Ponzi came up.”

The salaries, said the employee, also in hindsight, were so large because Madoff wanted to keep people happy; he wanted allies in case they found out what was really happening. “Nobody left because they could never get another job that paid as well as this one. Some people, after his arrest, speculated that it was kind of like hush money; nobody asked any questions because the Madoffs were nice, protective, generous.

“The Madoffs had all of us out to Montauk for yearly weekends. We didn’t go to their houses but they put us up in hotels. They had a barbecue lunch on the sand and a formal dinner under a tent at the yacht club. On Sunday they took a small subset of employees on a fishing trip.

I can’t be the only one who immediately thought of this.

I had not seen this before, but it goes with what we were talking about earlier.

What a disgrace.

You can get the gist of this appalling Maeve Reston piece about her days with the McCain campaign at David Kurtz’s “Tire Swinging, A Love Story,” but for the more complete rundown, I would recommend Glenn.

It really was an embarrassing piece. And, it is worth remembering, that when the right-wingers bitch about tough press coverage for the McCain camp, the media had to go from all the way in McCain’s pocket to the current state. That is how bad his campaign has been. The tough coverage of McCain is not based on an unending love of Obama, but the result of McCain running a really, really, bad campaign.

A comparison of the treatment Obama receives versus what McCain receives.

The McCain campaign is so absurd they even lost Fred Hiatt’s ship of fools at the WaPo:

IT’S HARD to think of a presidential campaign with a wider chasm between the seriousness of the issues confronting the country and the triviality, so far anyway, of the political discourse. On a day when the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim economic outlook, when the stock market faltered even in the wake of the government’s rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when President Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan, on what did the campaign of Sen. John McCain spend its energy? A conference call to denounce Sen. Barack Obama for using the phrase “lipstick on a pig” and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex before they learn to read.

Now, some of you out there might think of this is bad news for McCain. Au contraire, young padawan. This is how this will play out.

1.) Confident that they have done their duty calling out McCain for this foolishness, the WaPo will nonetheless continue to uncritically spread their bullshit.

2.) The McCain campaign will take this editorial as a badge of honor, and state that this shows how they are insurgents and outsiders, and the beltway establishment media hates them for it. This will further whip up the bubbas in the base.

3.) Simultaneously, the McCain campaign will restrict access to folks associated with the WaPo while maybe blatantly leaking scoops to their opposition. Additionally, the PR campaign against the WaPo launched by the McCain hacks and waged in large part by the wingnut blogosphere and their PR organs (NRO, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Hugh Hewitt, Hot Air) will begin to make the WaPo cower. Howard Kurtz will serve as an intermediary, bashing the WaPo from within by linking to the criticisms in the wingnut blogosphere.

4.) Days of restricted campaign access and negative campaigning against the WaPO pay off, and Hiatt and others approve numerous editorials alternately slamming Obama and praising McCain and Palin. About what? Who cares? This will be done in the name of “balance.”

McCain gains 2 points in the polls, Rovian politics wins again, Democrats begin infighting and wondering why Obama doesn’t just fight back. I drink heavily.

And when I say it is off with a bang, I hope Howard Dean was offstage shooting whoever planned the first ten minutes. First, an “inter-faith” prayer to start the ceremony, which went something like this:

“We thank you heavenly father for bringing together this diverse group of diverse delegates together to do our sacred duty to diversely represent the diverse people blah blah blah blah.”

It was like a bad SNL skit. It was like the time I went to a church ceremony for Christmas with my parents after years away from church, and found us holding hands, lighting candles, and singing “Oh Tannenbaum” while wondering when the pagans had taken over the Disciples of Christ. If this is the fruit of years of effort to reach values voters, just stop. We might as well say fuck it and go for the satan worshipper vote.

God willing, no one saw this.

Additional highlights included a hesistant announcer who consistantly put the emphasis on the wrong syllable and seemed to not know what she was saying, and the children’s choir, who started ahead of the beat singing the national anthem to the pleasing tones of an electric piano. I have expected to see Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, and Christopher Guest on stage it was that bad.

Meanwhile, CNN is in full ratfuck mode. For balance they had Clinton surrogate James Carville and McCain surrogate and hypocritical moralizing loudmouth Bill Bennett on to explain why Obama sucks, and Bennett dutifully informed us that this is the most liberal Democratic party EVAH and that while most people like Biden, Alito, Roberts, and Thomas don’t (without noting the irony that all three of them were confirmed).

They then broke to the floor, where a 19 year old Clinton delegate was going to explain why he was still going to vote for Clinton. Fortunately, the microphone was broken, and as they went to commercial break, Wolf informed us:

“Well, I hope they fix your microphone, because we want to hear from the delegates. Especially the Clinton delegates who are unhappy.”

Yeah. It is gonna go down like that. Fucking liberal media.

Move over, Jake Tapper. Mark Halperin has outdone himself today, claiming that the McCain housing gaffe is bad for Obama.

No. Seriously:

For service to the cause, it is with much pride that I award you the Second Golden McPenis, for meritorious service to McCain’s scrotum. Well done, Mark. You earned it.

Congratulations.

Just another Republican:

ABC News’ Teddy Davis and Rigel Anderson Report: John McCain’s campaign signaled on Wednesday that the Arizona senator is backing away from his previously stated goal of changing the GOP’s platform on abortion.

“There’s a process in place for the delegates to work on the platform and we are going to let that process work itself out,” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers told ABC News.

McCain’s plan to take a hands-off approach with the abortion platform stands in stark contrast with the position he took during his first presidential run.

Back in 2000, McCain clashed with then-Gov. George W. Bush over his unwillingness to change platform language that called for a human life amendment banning all abortions.

McCain implored Bush to join him in wanting to add exceptions for rape, incest, and danger to the life of the mother.

This is, of course, not unlike using Campaign Finance Reform as your signature issue for years, standing around while the media throws garlands and gushing prose at you all the while, then, in the first chance you have to follow the CFR laws you enacted, you game them for all they are worth.

Being a maverick sounds like a lot of fun. It is like a responsibility free zone.

Remember now, Obama is the elitist:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

“I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties.

In recent weeks, Democrats have stepped up their effort to caricature McCain as living an outlandishly rich lifestyle — a bit of payback to the GOP for portraying Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as an elitist, and for turning the spotlight in 2004 on the five homes owned by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Channeling my inner Jeff Foxworthy: “If you don’t know how many houses you have, you might be elitist.”

I fully expect Bob Schieffer to dedicate his Sunday morning speech to the fact that McCain is just too busy defending us from evil to count his houses, and plus, why are you attacking his integrity? Don’t you know he was a POW?

Don’t know if anyone besides me is watching CNN’s, McCain: Revealed. But it’s been on for almost an hour now, and it’s a McCain campaign commercial. That’s what it is. Hero. Hero. Hero. “I take responsibility for my marriage break-up.” Hero. Hero. Hero.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Next on CNN - Obama: Revealed. Scary, black, baby killer.

He is just an innocent victim of the media, bloggers, and the conservative establishment:

Brooks is a conservative who admires McCain, so I suppose even this level of criticism is sort of admirable. Still, the passive-voice construction of the entire column really grates. Bloggers are somehow responsible for McCain running juvenile ads comparing Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears? A bored press is responsible for McCain claiming that Obama puts personal interest ahead of country? The conservative establishment prevented McCain from calling out Jerome Corsi’s book for the vile trash that it is? The system forced McCain to hire one of Karl Rove’s disciples as his campaign manager?

Enough. Just enough. There are plenty of ways of getting attention, and McCain made his own choices. No one forced them on him, not the system, not bloggers, not the press. If McCain is running a campaign based on personal destruction, he’s doing it because that’s the choice he made. Less passive voice, please.

And don’t you dare wonder why we should vote to give this guy control of the country when he can’t even control the direction of his campaign.

Why? Shut up, that is why! Don’t question his patriotism! You know he was a POW, dontcha!

I think there is pretty solid evidence that he’s just copying other peoples’ shit.

1. The story sounds very much like a Solzhenitsyn story (via Sullivan)

Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.

As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed.

2. McCain is a Solzhenitsyn fan (via GOS)

The other possibility is that McCain really thinks this happened to him, and can’t differentiate between something he read and something he actually experienced. I’m pretty convinced that he experienced no such thing. As Rickrocket notes: “Somehow I doubt that Alexander Solzhenitsyn heard John McCain’s story and copied it.”

My guess? No one will ask McCain about it for fear of being accused of questioning his patriotism.