Are we seeing the real McCain?

John Judis writes in The New Republic today in response to the latest David Brooks column on the subject of John McCain's contemptible exploitation of the current crisis. The piece is brief and well worth reading in whole, but here is an excerpt:

That's a long way of saying that it is simply unpatriotic--it's an insult to flag, country, and all the things that McCain claims to hold dear--for McCain to hold this financial crisis hostage to his political ambitions.

McCain doesn't know a thing about finance and is no position to help work out an agreement. If we do suffer a serious bank run, or a run on the dollar, it can be laid directly at his feet. As I said to friends last night, if McCain had been president at this point, I would have wanted to impeach him.

That brings me back to David Brooks' column. David thinks that beneath the surface of McCain the craven campaigner, that the man who nominated an ill-prepared Sarah Palin as his possible successor and has lent his energies to blocking a financial bailout, there still sits a "real McCain" who could govern fairly and effectively as president.

I doubt it. I really doubt it.

Whether because of age or overreaching ambition, McCain has become the kind of man he earlier railed against. He has become the Bush of 2000 against whom he campaigned or the Senate and House Republicans whom he despised. His defeat is now imperative.

I agree with Judis - we are seeing the real McCain. The 2000 version of John McCain was an illusion; he has devoted the past year to convincing us of this, and nothing could be more persuasive than his shameful conduct over the past two days.

Technorati Tags: McCain, Election 2008

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