He'll Take The High Road

And, let Sarah take the low road.

So, now we know what desperation looks like, and it's pretty ugly to behold. John McCain has abandoned whatever sense of decency he may have once had and is hiding behind a woman's skirts. He knows that Sarah Palin is lying about Obama, claiming he is "palling around with terrorists", yet he allows her to go on saying them, or, maybe he even encourages her. And, there's more to come.

If there's anything I detest about politics, it's the way candidates tend to sell their souls when it begins to look as though they are losing ground. I first noticed this when George H.W. Bush abandoned all of the core beliefs that he had held throughout his entire career. He went from a moderate Republican to a Reagan idealogue, in exchange for Reagan's promise to back him when the time came for him to run for President.

After Bush's first term, when it appeared he was in real trouble against that upstart, Bill Clinton, he kicked over all the traces and unleashed the religious right at his convention, and they have been running rampant over the Republican Party ever since.

Then, George W. Bush got religion and the zealots embraced him, he won, and we all know how that worked out.

John McCain tried to follow that lead, and it didn't work for him, because the idealogues are uncomfortable around mavericks. Too hard to control, they think. Hence, Sarah Palin. McCain is hoping she can deliver the extremist wing of the party that has heretofore been coolish to him. It seems he has now turned her loose to do what she does best - trash the opposition. Like others of her ilk, she's not much troubled by the truth. "Any means to an end" is their mantra, because "God is on our side". She is as transparent as a pane of glass and she doesn't care who realizes it.

The McCain people have no doubt promised her their backing when she runs for President in her own right. Yeah, right. Like the Republicans are actually going to elect a woman as their candidate. When pigs fly, with or without lipstick.

John McCain has had a long and distinguished career. Once revered as a genuine war hero, he was his own man. Now, he's just a pathetic old man, desperate to fight Vietnam all over again, and relive the glory days when he was young and had the world by the tail.

The sad part of it is whether he wins or loses, he'll have to live out the rest of his life with the knowledge that he has diminished himself by allowing naked ambition to replace dignity, honor and integrity.

Maverick no more. Hero no more.