Agreeing with Frank Rich today on the weakness of McCain

I agree with the sentiment in Frank Rich's column today. Old Man McCain is one of the worst candidates the GOP could have chosen this year, and one of the wobbliest major candidates we've seen run for President in modern times.

When the media scrutiny comes - and it will come - it will not be kind (see here for the latest on his serial bending/breaking of campaign laws this election).

Update: To us at NDN nothing more has spoken to the character of John McCain than what he has done on the immigration issue. As Andres wrote recently, in 2007, when collapsing in the GOP primaries, McCain made the very political decision to walk from his own immigration reform bill and was thus instrumental in the collapse of the Senate bill. On this matter, there is no way to ascribe virtue to what he has done. At the moment of truth he showed cowardice, not courage, and betrayed a community he once championed. He has since repeatedly said he would not support his own bill if it came back to the Senate.

To us at NDN this one example - and there are more - shows how far McCain has fallen since the heyday of the Straight Talk Express. In his desperate last attempt to win the GOP nomination over the past year John McCain became a craven politician, tossing long held beliefs on taxes, immigration, torture, campaign finance over board faster than folks have gotten tossed from American Idol. While this strategy may have been effective in winning him the nomination it also needs to become a central part of how the country comes to understand who the McCain of 2008 - not the McCain of 2000 - has become.

His dispiriting ideological implosion speaks to the larger collapse of conservative and GOP politics brought about by the Bush Presidency, a new reality of American politics that may be with us for a very long time.