The beginning of the end for Crazy John

From The Washington Post:

Just about a year and a half ago, Sen. John McCain went to court to try to curtail the influence of a group to which A. Jerrold Perenchio gave $9 million, saying it was trying to "evade and violate" new campaign laws with voter ads ahead of the midterm elections.

As McCain launches his own presidential campaign, however, he is counting on Perenchio, the founder of the Univision Spanish-language media empire, to raise millions of dollars as co-chairman of the Arizona Republican's national finance committee.

In his early efforts to secure the support of the Republican establishment he has frequently bucked, McCain has embraced some of the same political-money figures, forces and tactics he pilloried during a 15-year crusade to reduce the influence of big donors, fundraisers and lobbyists in elections. That includes enlisting the support of Washington lobbyists as well as key players in the fundraising machine that helped President Bush defeat McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries.

After enduring his own brush with scandal in the early 1990s, when he and four Senate colleagues pressured regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, chairman of a failed savings and loan association, while collecting donations and favors from him, McCain became a leader in the effort to eliminate "soft money" in elections -- large donations from corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals. In 2002, McCain joined forces with Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) to finally push through legislation ending soft money and placing strict limits on donations.

But now the contrast between McCain the presidential candidate and McCain the reformer can be jarring. McCain's campaign says that he is still studying whether to forgo the public financing and spending limits he has long supported, but that he will not be handicapped by restrictions his competitors will not face in 2008.

What is remarkable here is not that John McCain is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is actually pretty far down on the list of what is wrong with McCain. What is remarkable here is that a left-liberal mainstream newspaper, in fact one of the nation's two most prestigious left-liberal mainstream newspapers, would go out of their way to inform us about it.

John McCain, being who and what he is, must be furious and perplexed in equal measure. Furious not just because his hypocrisy has been exposed but because it has been exposed by his erstwhile media ally, which leads to his perplexity.

Until now the greatest friend McCain has had was the left-wing mainstream media. They have built him up and given him hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free publicity. In McCain's mind they have done this because they recognize his value. They respect his leadership and his ideas and know that it is his glorious destiny to rise to the White House where he will save the nation. In other words McCain believes that the media flock to him to bask in the radiance of his greatness and hear his words, which in his mind represent truth and wisdom unlike any spoken since the Sermon on the Mount (remember he is crazy as a shithouse rat).

Of course the average reporter is a leftist political operative whose reporting is crafted to service the liberal agenda and McCain is a useful idiot who performs for them like a trained poodle by trashing the Republican Party every time they point a camera at him. McCain is useful to the media in the same way that Benedict Arnold was useful to the British.

As long as the White House and legislature were controlled by Republicans McCain was valuable, but now that congress is in Democrat hands and the next presidential election promises a chance for Hillary Clinton to become president McCain's usefulness is at an end. The stature which the media has given him is now a threat to their preferred candidate and so he must be taken down.

What we are seeing now is just the first salvo in the MSM's systematic destruction of John McCain. Expect it to continue and to grow worse as they prove that they can break what they have previously made.

The big question mark in this is what McCain will do. Remember he is over the river and through the woods crazy. He doesn't understand that they never really admired him, that he was never anything to them but a tool and that they are now ready to flush him like used toilet paper. When these facts begin to penetrate his damaged psyche what will the effect be? Will he snap and attack a reporter during an interview or news conference or will his mind shatter in a more general way causing him to become a freeway overpass sniper or will he just hang himself from the Washington Monument?

I don't know, but when he can no longer sustain his illusions something will happen and it would be wise to be elsewhere when it does.