From the front lines on the War on John McCain

Egged on by our friend Elias Nugator in the comments, I intend to compile all instances of truthtelling about McCain's true character that I can lay my hands on. If you find anything good, please do leave a comment. Maybe together we can put some serious rust on his undeserved "straight-talker" image.

Media Matters:

Media ♥ McCain

Has any political figure ever been the beneficiary of the kind of relentlessly positive, often-sycophantic media coverage Republican Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has enjoyed for as long as we can remember?

McCain's favorable treatment is particularly glaring whenever ethics and government reform come up. While other politicians face regular media second-guessing and cynicism about their motives and consistency, McCain is presented as a paragon of virtue, tirelessly and selflessly toiling away to make America a better place...

Eric Alterman:

If you read Joe Lelyveld’s 8400 word profile of Chuck Hagel, here, you’ll see that Hagel is everything John MCain pretends to be—and what his suck-up fan club in the press corps build him up to be. Hagel does what he thinks is right and accepts the consequences. He does not do what he knows is wrong and then apologize afterwards to show what a regular guy he is. He does not brown-nose the people who cut him off at the knees and he does not attack honest legislators like Barack Obama to curry favor with the racist and/or regressive elements of his party. If only he had had the nerve to vote against the war which he now, at least, has the courage to oppose.

Now look at McCain, here. It’s pathetic that this is the media’s idea of a heroically plain-spoken politician. As Media Matters points out, McCain couldn’t get better press from the insider media if he had pictures of all of them having sex with, well, matters of taste preclude from finishing that sentence. They ask, “Has any political figure ever been the beneficiary of the kind of relentlessly positive, often-sycophantic media coverage Republican Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has enjoyed for as long as we can remember?”

And, the Rude Pundit on McCain's little hissyfit display on Hardball over Obama's clearly misconstrued position on ethics reform:

The two pasty-faced assholes chuckled and chortled about the letter that McCain sent to Obama...You can read the letters on Obama's Senate website; he's posted them without comment, which is the subtle way of saying of McCain, "God, what a wad of f***."...

...Obama's reaction letter to McCain's spittle-ridden bit of enragement...is so classy, so mutedly firm and resolute, that if any in the media, like, say, Chris Matthews, brought it up, it'd take the glow off McCain's red, shiny head. It'd also put the ethics scandal clearly back in the Republicans' court, despite the GOP's best efforts to bob and weave and deceive.