The Next President Up Close and Personal

Senator John McCain and Sam at his Arizona ranch

If the presidential election were held today, John McCain would win despite Democratic inroads in the mid-term election. When the presidential election is held, John McCain will win unless fate intervenes.

In my view, the presidential election is McCain's to lose.

Other than that torture thing (as in McCain tacitly supporting its use by U.S. intelligence officers despite his own harsh treatment by the North Vietnamese as a POW), I like the senator from Arizona a lot and I'm not a conservative.

So I read Todd Purdum's profile of the presidential wannabe in the new Vanity Fair with much interest.

The title of the piece -- "Prisoner of Conscience" tells all, and in the end I was disappointed with this rather shallow, if lengthy, portrait of a man who is trying awfully hard to be touchy-feely, wants to always do the right thing but knows he can't please everyone all of the time.
Conspicuous in its absence from the article: Any mention of McCain's capitulation to the White House on his own torture bill despite much discussion about himself being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.

Atrios is less kind over at Eschaton and refers to McCain as a "Pander Bear."

(Photograph for Vanity Fair by Jonas Karlsson)