SpiralTruth

John McCain announced today that he loves being the underdog and, “My friends, we’ve got ‘em just where we want ‘em!” And, you know, this sounds like a pretty authentic statement from a guy who thought the U.S. could have won in Vietnam if they’d just stayed a little longer and who doesn’t believe in a time-line for withdrawal from Iraq. With McCain appearing (finally) on David Letterman and Sarah Palin making her debut on Saturday Night Live, it looks like it’s all style over substance from here on in, which is sort of funny when you remember that this is an accusation normally made against Barack Obama. It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for John McCain. It’s like watching your own grandpa make a fool out of himself on prime time TV. You’d like to coax him out of the spotlight somehow. “Grandpa, it’s time for your nap.” But it’s no use. The Republican machine has been brought up to full steam, and it will not even consider the possibility of failure, even if that would mean saving the poor old man some dignity.

As Rolling Stone’s Make Believe Maverick article points out, McCain’s sources of dignity may indeed be fictional. Among the many insights into his history, we find that McCain “had a knack for stalling out his planes in midflight” and that it was only his family’s influence that allowed him to fly long enough to be shot down over North Vietnam. Sort of makes the whole POW story a little less compelling, doesn’t it? Now, I’m not sure I trust that Rolling Stone is composed of top notch investigative journalists, but the story does raise a lot of interesting questions about the real John McCain – and he wanted this campaign to be about character, right?

Alas, Colin Powell made sure to deliver another blow to everyone’s favorite underdog today by publicly endorsing Obama.

I like Powell. I’m still surprised that he sticks by the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and is a member of the Republican Party, given that he’s always seemed to be much more diplomatic and responsible than that, but in my mind he makes up for it by giving great props to the guy who will be the next President so long as rational folks can outnumber the idiots at the voting stations.