As the Lies Pile Up, McCain’s Former Fans Increasingly Repulsed by the Cynicism

Tweety counts seven times that she has repeated her Bridge to Nowhere line. Meanwhile, as of 2:30 PM, ThinkProgress is up to 27 different uses of this line (including Palin’s 8th use of it today).

Meanwhile, one by one, the weight of this evidence has demonstrated to McCain’s former fans what a dishonorable, cynical creature John McCain has become. There was Mike Murphy, caught on live mike, admitting that the selection of Sarah Palin was cynical and gimmicky. And Joe Klein, labeling McCain’s pro-predator attack on Obama as  "one of the sleaziest ads I’ve ever seen in presidential politics." Even Mark Halperin called last nights piggy lipstick stunt the lowpoint of this campaign. 

Sully is just the latest of former McCain fans to grow utterly disgusted with this new cynical creature.

For me, this surreal moment – like the entire surrealism of the past ten days – is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It’s about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?

So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil.

[snip]

McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain – no one else – has proved it. 

These former fans may well be the biggest threat to McCain’s campaign. There’s nothing like a lover scorned and no one to better describe the profound depths of McCain’s cynicism than to have his former boosters describe their newfound revulsion.