New Hampshire Debate: Spit Shine

(updated 12:36 PST)

“Mr. McCain is so eager to mix it up that even when a supporter challenges him, he seems to look for ways to tell them things they do not want to hear.

If someone is critical of President Bush, he tells them where the president deserves credit: for his work on AIDS in Africa or for the fact that the United States has not been attacked since Sept. 11, 2001. But when another voter blames the news media or Democrats for the perception that the war in Iraq was mismanaged over its first four years, he will point to Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense, and Mr. Bush himself.

…

After an event on Friday at a company that makes equipment for the military, Mr. McCain chose to rail against the “military-industrial complex.” Later, he said, “Sometimes I go too far.”

He said an angel on one shoulder begged him to pipe down while a devil on the other goaded him on.”

The way a snickering John McCain was peppering Romney with cheap shots last night, he even made the Huckster look like a grown up.  In the pic, a puffed up McCain is riding high at a post-debate debate-watching party.

The fresh attention only serves to remind why McCain dropped like a rock in the first place.  It wasn’t just because he supported the war (or, was for it after he was against it).  It’s that the guy just can’t contain his peevish arrogance.

quote from: quote from: McCain Mixes It Up on a Town-Hall Tour (NYT)

John McCain: Free At Last? (BNN)

(image : Charles Dharapak/AP.  Saint Anselm College. January 5, 2008.  Manchester, New Hampshire.  via YahooNews)