John McCain: A soft touch down back to reality

Johnnie "do the stroll" McCain returned late this week from the alternative universe where Iraqis shower Americans with candy and flowers. The New York Times covers the flip-floppery on-line:

After a week of public pummeling, Mr. McCain, one of the Republican candidates for the 2008 nomination, now says he misspoke about the situation on the ground in Baghdad. In an interview to be broadcast on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Mr. McCain said he wished he had been more measured in his remarks.

“Of course I am going to misspeak and I’ve done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do it in the future,” he told CBS correspondent Scott Pelley. “I regret that when I divert attention to something I said from my message but you know, that’s just life.”

I, along with thousands of bloggers and those Iraqi merchants (who were described as "astonished" when appraised of Johnnie Mac's initial sunny comments) gave McCain the business over the stupidity of those remarks. McCain took the heat especially heavily because he is a top tier presidential candidate, but moreso because he's the self-proclaimed straight talk express.

That sure was some straight talk, eh? Johnnie Mac's initial comments were right out of a Dick Cheney speech - That's just how Looney Tunes he sounded. So, it was a great deal of relief I read McCain's new comments. I may not particularly like McCain, but I do greatly prefer that top tier presidential candidates be of sound minds.

He certainly does now sound grounded. Oh, of course he hasn't budged one inch on his stance to the war. But, at least he has left Limbaughland and returned to the reality-based community (or some far flung burg - somewhere in the galaxy).

Where ever McCain turns these days, things turn into gooey dog turds. Its like the Midas Touch, only reversed. Call it the Dubya Touch. Think of any important issue over the past two and half years. If Dubya is for it, campaigns for, uses his bully pulpit, then public support craters. Now McCain has the Dubya Touch - in spades.

This Dubya Touch effect is purely McCain's own doing. He decided a long time ago that he was going to run between Dubya's butt cheeks. I always thought it was an insane strategy given his history with Dubya, but McCain's pollsters probably told him Dubya was popular within the Republican Party.

The Straight-Talk Express is now the Flip-Flopping Train That Couldn't. Republicans hate McCain. Dems have grown to hate him, and I would be willing to bet that Independents are at best scratching their heads.

Let's see if Johnnie Mac' new Phoenix Rising campaign strategy is going to work. It did for Kerry in 2004, but that was a far different situation. Right now, the McCain campaign is on life support. He doesn't seem like such a top-tier candidate anaymore.