Ovation For Ted, Raspberry For John

It's a given that presidential candidates who are running for president are going to miss a vote or three, but the situation with John McCain is ridiculous.

The Republican wannabe has not voted since April 8, missing a total of 76 votes. This includes several key votes on important legislation, among them Social Security, which he views as "a total disgrace," and expanding veterans' GI bill benefits, which he vociferously opposed and then took credit for after that bill passed.

Ted Kennedy, who is not running for president but merely for his life because of brain cancer, went where McCain no longer treads yesterday and cast the decisive vote in favor of moving the Medicare bill on to final passage.

Kennedy received a sustained standing ovation for his valor; McCain, who was the only senator to miss the vote, deserves a raspberry.

And needs someone to tell him that between missing Senate votes, joking about killing Iranians with American cigarettes and being an amnesiac on cue when confronted with one of his myriad flip flops, he is running an extraordinarily ham-handed campaign that at many turns casts him as not only unpresidential, but a real goofball.

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Photograph by Lauren Victoria Burke/The Associated Press