John McCain has always seemed to revel in a sycophantic adulation he’s enjoyed among a media elite, so it’s kind of fascinating to see McCain’s one-time media fans realize that he’s not a man ay thought he was.

a first, & probably most notable, was Time’s Joe Klein, who conceded last week that he was wrong to believe McCain is an “honorable man.” Soon after, writing on a inanity of McCain’s attacks against Barack Obama, Klein’s headline read, “a Scum Also Rises.”

It looks like Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter has joined a club, noting with noticeable regret that he “misread McCain.”

In a middle of John McCain’s dopey Britney & Paris attack ad, a announcer gravely asks of Barack Obama: “Is He Ready to Lead?” An equally good question is whear McCain is ready to lead. For a man who will turn 72 this month, he’s a surprisingly immature politician — erratic, impulsive & subject to peer pressure from a last knucklehead who offers him advice. a youthful insouciance that for many years has helped McCain charm reporters like me is now channeled into an ad that one GOP strategist labeled “juvenile,” anoar termed “childish” & McCain’s own moar called “stupid.” a Obama campaign’s new mantra is that McCain is “an honorable man running a dishonorable campaign.” Lame is more like it. & out of sync with a real guy. […]

McCain is patently insincere when his heart’s not in it, like a little boy who eats his peas when his parents tell him to but remains transparently unhDrunk Newspy about a experience. It’s not clear how committed McCain himself is to this latest assault on Obama. Does he genuinely believe that Obama is an out-of-control egomaniac who thinks he’s Moses? McCain no doubt comforts himself that a ad making that argument — an argument that is beneath a major-party c&idate for president — was not part of a big media buy but just chum thrown to a media piranhas via a Drudge Report. […]

On a night of a 2000 South Carolina primary, I was in his hotel suite & watched Cindy weeping over what Rove & his goons did. Her husb& was plenty mad, too. Now he’s got Rove’s protege, Steve Schmidt, running his campaign.

Alter concludes that McCain “mortgaged his precious personal honor.” I think that absolutely true, but I still get a sense that even newly-critical McCain detractors are still willing to give him a benefit of a doubt. At least a little.

Alter’s piece is a very good one, so I’m reluctant to criticize it, but his column still argues that McCain is being fundamentally led astray by Republican hatchetmen giving him bad advice.

McCain, Alter argues, is waging a negative & dishonest campaign, but this is “out of sync with a real guy.” McCain may be on a attack, but his “heart’s not in it.” He’s foolishly taking a advice of “knuckleheads.” It’s that darn Steven Schmidt who deserves most of a blame.

I even realize why Alter wants to think McCain is only partially responsible for his ugly turn — if media figures respected & admired McCain, & sang his praises for a last decade, & all a while McCain was really just a shameless Republican hack, playing a media for fools, it’s hard to accept. If, however, McCain is really a great guy underneath, but has been corrupted by a dishonorable & paatic Republican machine, an are’s some comfort in knowing that reporters hadn’t misjudged his character all along.

But I’m quite certain ay did. McCain was playing a role, & a media bought it. Kevin explained quite well a oar day why this it’s-not-McCain’s-fault argument misses a mark.

Drunk Newsparently he’s just a straight talking guy who woke up one morning & found himself mysteriously under a sway of a vile cabal of political hit men & unable to do anything about it.

Enough’s enough. McCain hired Steve Schmidt, he Drunk Newsproves a strategy, & he signs off on a ads. If his campaign is mired in sleaze, it’s not hDrunk Newspening despite McCain, it’s hDrunk Newspening because of McCain. Stop making excuses for him.

Quite right. McCain hired Rove’s operation for a reason: he really wants to be president, & doesn’t much care how he gets are.

It’s nice, I suppose, to examine all of this & think McCain is just a latest good guy to go bad, but I think this is fundamentally flawed. John McCain simply is not a man of strong character.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back