McCain Comes Full Circle — It's Over

That's my prediction. My wildly presumptuous, hair-trigger prediction. And deep down, you know I'm right.

There is — barring any calamitous screw-up by Barack Obama — no way John McCain can rally to win the election.

Mint it. Print it. Sprint it (what!?).

He can't do it. He won't do it.

And it's not because he lost the debate Tuesday night — which he did. It's not because he lacks intelligence — which he doesn't. It's not even because his attempts at humor are tarnishing the legacy of Celtic wit and timing — which they are.

(McCain's roots go back to Antrim in Northern Ireland — and Scotland before that — just like the McClatchy roots — and the McClatchy clan is, by all accounts, an absolute laugh riot! We kill! We are flat-out hilarious — as any self-respecting, mildly lubricated Irish-Scots family must be. Come on, Senator McCain — if you're going to engage in witticisms and sly asides, you have a sacred Celtic obligation to, ya know, be funny.)

But McCain is done because he is physically, emotionally and psychologically unfit to lead.

Now Kevin ... don't you go Swift-boating this war hero, you socialist, tree-hugging son of a bitch.

I wouldn't dream of Swift-boating John McCain. Because John McCain has been Swift-boated already and he understands the impotent rage and bottomless disgust that being Swift-boated produces.

"They know no depths, do they? They know no depths."

That's what John McCain said about Karl Rove and George Bush's smear campaign against him in South Carolina's 2000 presidential primary.

(Of course, it wasn't called Swift-boating back then. It would be four more years before the Son of Perdition cooked that gem up. In 2000 it was just called Rove being Rove.)

And McCain was right. He was dead-on.

Yet now — with his presidential prospects dimming — he has come full circle and sold his soul at the altar of Mr. Pure Walking Evil himself:


















McCain's transparent and wildly irresponsible VP pick was bad enough. But then — under the watchful eye of campaign strategist and Rove clone Steve Schmidt — McCain went off the reservation. He sent his circus act of a running mate Sarah Palin on an unholy mission to brand Barack Obama a terrorist.

Gov. Palin — folksy as all-get-out and that much creepier for it — said Obama was "pallin' around with terrorists." We all know she was referring to William Ayres, the former leader of the Weathermen, a radical anti-war group from the 60s and early 70s.

His militant opposition to the Vietnam War and his subsequent actions occurred when he was in his 20s and Obama was 8.

Somehow — in repeating this rap over and over — Governor Palin neglects to mention that Ayres, now 63, is a leader in education reform and a Distinguished Professor at the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

With the "terrorist" number and her standard misrepresentation about Obama's remarks on Afghanistan, she is whipping crowds into a dangerous, misguided frenzy. Shouts of "treason!" and "terrorist!" accompany mention of Obama at McCain/Palin rallies.

It doesn't seem to occur to her that she is playing a perilous game that can lead to tragedy.

Which is not surprising — she's a dim bulb with a bizarre moral compass.

Thank God she'll never be vice-president.

What is genuinely surprising — and sounds the death knell for McCain's campaign — is this:

With a massive financial crisis that he stood by and watched develop (you can't vote with George Bush 92% of the time and call yourself Maverick — or Goose or Iceman for that matter ...)

With a $10-billion-a-month wrong-headed war that he consistently championed ...

With a health-care situation that just may be the thing that brings violent protests back to the streets ...

With all that and much more ...

With the country hungering for real leadership ...

McCain went and Swift-boated Obama.

He Karl-Roved the poor bastard.

John McCain has become what he despises.

I didn't think he would.

He knows no depths, does he?

Thank God he's lost the election.