Evangeliballs

John McCain recently made a speech at Jerry Falwell's college, marking the first visit ever to Liberty University, home of the Fightin' Flames. Flames? Um, Jerry....Freud called and he advised toning it down justa tad. Ever since McCain started cupping Bush's balls in public, he's aquired that weird There's-something-stuck-up-there look on his face. He gets redder, puffier and more GOP-like each day. Naturally, he's starting to pander to the minority of religious nutbags that hold unexplainable power over the Republican party. The McCain myth has been dispelled for years now. Last year, the Arizon Daily Star covered an interview that ran on MTV news:

"Let the student decide." With those well-chosen words John McCain summed up his view on the teaching of "intelligent design" along with evolution in public schools.

Even — or perhaps especially — with controversial topics, Arizona's ubiquitous senior U.S. senator has an uncanny knack for saying things his audience wants to hear.

I think Paul Krugman hit the nail on the head when he said:

He isn't a straight talker. His flip-flopping on tax cuts, his call to send troops we don't have to Iraq and his endorsement of the South Dakota anti-abortion legislation even while claiming that he would find a way around that legislation's central provision show that he's a politician as slippery and evasive as, well, George W. Bush. He isn't a moderate. Mr. McCain's policy positions and Senate votes don't just place him at the right end of America's political spectrum; they place him in the right wing of the Republican Party. And he isn't a maverick, at least not when it counts. When the cameras are rolling, Mr. McCain can sometimes be seen striking a brave pose of opposition to the White House. But when it matters, when the Bush administration's ability to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line.

A straight-talker, he ain't, folks.