A good correction to the McCain myth from the Daily Howler:
For the record, McCain wasn’t exactly “driven out of the 2000 Republican primaries by this sort of smear.” The editors seem to refer to the South Carolina primary, which featured a great deal of nasty, underground sliming. But McCain continued campaigning after that, winning subsequent primaries in six states (including Michigan and Massachusetts), losing primaries in eleven others (including a 61-35 drubbing in California). … McCain got waxed in a string of states—but there was never any particular claim that “smears” decided those races. McCain was substantially outspent by Bush, and Republican voters tended to prefer Bush’s more conservative posture. (In most of those states, independents couldn’t vote, unlike in New Hampshire, where they’d given McCain his big win.) But in the press corps’ treasured novel, a deeply noble, wonderful man was driven from the race by a goon squad.
Somerby goes on to list some of the negative crap McCain and his campaign pulled in 2000. He’s not some changed McCain eight years later as the media myth would have us believe. McCain has always been an ass, only now he’s a doddering old ass.