Hell No, We Won't Vote

For John "The Weasel" McCain, that is:

There is a strutting self-righteousness about McCain that goes hand-in-hand with a nitroglycerin temper. He flatters himself that his colleagues in the Senate dislike him because he stands up for principle, while they sell their souls for pork. Not exactly. He is disliked because on many, many occasions he has been disrespectful, belligerent, and vulgar to those who differ with him.

Bradley Smith, former commissioner of the Federal Election Commission and the leading legal scholar on campaign-finance issues, experienced the McCain treatment firsthand. Because Smith opposed limits on political speech, he was denounced as “corrupt” by the senator (as was Commissioner Ellen Weintraub). Smith, who lives modestly, jokes that his wife has complained about the absence of jewels and furs. Though he served on the commission for five years and made several attempts to meet with McCain to discuss the issues, Smith was rebuffed.

The two did accidentally meet outside a hearing room in 2004 when they were both scheduled to testify before the Senate rules committee. At first, McCain grasped Smith’s outstretched hand (Smith was in a wheelchair recovering from surgery), but when he recognized his campaign finance opponent he snatched his hand back, snarling “I’m not going to shake your hand. You’re a bully. You have no regard for the Constitution. You’re corrupt.”

Smith, a soft-spoken scholar, ardent patriot, and lifelong conservative Republican, cannot pull the lever for McCain. He is far from alone, and that is the Republican Party’s heartbreak in 2008.

In heroically resisting the North Vietnamese in the Hanoi Hilton, John McCain displayed boundless reserves of honor and courage.

In cruelly divorcing the woman who devotedly waited for him throughout his imprisonment for a well-heeled younger model, in stabbing his fellow Republicans in the back time and again to curry favor with the liberal media, and in magnifying personal grudges into political crusades, John McCain has proven time and again that he left his honor and courage in Vietnam.

Once a hero, now just a power-hungry politician like all the rest. No wonder they embrace him.

How's THAT for "straight talk", Senator?