Likelihood of Success

John McCain is taking it to Congressman Murtha and the other congressional surrender monkeys:

The Arizona Republican said that people upset by his comments about IEDs to Jon Stewart on Tuesday night’s “Daily Show” should “lighten up.” After being grilled by Stewart , McCain jokingly told him that he had a present for him — an IED that he could place under his desk.

John McCain gets a lot of heat from bloggers — some of it from me, not that I matter individually, but I have also defended him as a good conservative on most core issues who, like every other politician (and every other person), has flaws. The fact that the media has turned on him means he must be doing something very right, which he is, by sticking to his guns, so to speak, on the Iraq surrender question. But a number of other things have changed, not for the benefit of John McCain.

One is that he is coming across as increasingly strange, in terms of things he’ll say — almost Deanesque. The quote above? Well, perhaps you had to be there. I like a good gag as much anyone, maybe more — but that isn’t funny. I don’t mean “it’s in bad taste, stop laughing.” I mean it is not funny. Is it possible that by virtue of losing his chorus among the media, he is just sounding tinnier? Isn’t it rich, losing his timing this late in his career?

The other is that the man is not aging gracefully, and the deformity on one side of his face seems to be more prominent as his youth — a youth largely given over to the service of his country — slips away. I was astonished at how prominent this deformity is in person when I spoke with him at a GOP Senate campaign stop in New Jersey several years ago. Physical imperfection has no bearing on his qualifications at all. Heck, John McCain has been bald as long as we’ve known him, and the track record of bald presidential candidates in modern politics is not good (Stevenson… Humphrey… Ford…), yet no one considered that a deal breaker.  But it can scarcely be pretended that his physical appearance at this point does not affect McCain’s electability, especially in a time of unparalleled superficiality.

In all, John McCain just seems less attractive than ever, notwithstanding his (qualified) virtues. He almost had a moment perhaps — the moment that may have been in some sense (some say a very specific sense) stolen by George Bush. But that moment certainly seems to be in the past.