ShoutyBear: Politics. Foreign Affairs. Zarf.

I am in mourning.

Not just for my mother, whom I lost last month (and is the reason why I’ve been much less Shouty lately). But for the John McCain of 2000, who dared challenge a political scion and the Republican Party establishment’s pick for the job. The one who talked freely to anyone on the trail who’d listen to the point of using a politically incorrect term for his captives of five-and-a-half years because hell, all he had to lose was an election. He’d always have his honor. Which he almost did lose, but soon enough regained after apologizing to campaign reporters and his supporters for pandering to South Carolinians on the Confederate flag.

That McCain was never the superstar the media made him out to be. He was as flawed a politician as the next guy, who only ever took up the Reformer mantle after a near-political-death experience in the early ’90s. It was a move borne of panic, but you believed him when he lambasted pork-greedy colleagues and out-of-control spending. So it was no surprise that McCain parted ways with President Bush on those post-9/11 tax cuts. It’s just what his admirers expected him to do.

That John McCain is gone. And this crazy, maddening, frequently silly ritual by which Americans elect their presidents is worse for it. Continue reading Why McCain 2.0 Might Just Win This Thing…