Senator John McCain has always struck me as a decent man, a battle-tested (in Vietnam and on Capitol Hill) individual posessing both integrity and good humor. Though the Senator and I might differ on any number of issues and political ideals, I feel as though—were we given the opportunity to engage in a discussion of such over a couple of cold beers—we would manage to find some common ground and, where we did not, manage to respect one another nonetheless. Given these qualities, Mr. McCain would appear to stand head and shoulders above the vast majority of his Republican peers (not particularly difficult when one’s ranks are filled by the likes of Tom DeLay and George W. Bush). However, of late, Senator McCain—who may have eyes on the Oval Office, come 2008—has seemed to stoop a bit and has come under attack for such. Howard Kurtz writes in today’s Washington Post of the media’s growing disaffection with the formerly maverick politician:

John McCain was expecting journalists to start slapping him around, and he hasn’t been disappointed.

As he gears up for a likely presidential campaign, the Arizona senator knows that reporters and columnists—whom he jokingly described last year as “my base”—have to prove their independence this time around. Media folks spent so much time riding on McCain’s bus and listening to his rolling news conferences in the 2000 campaign that they were often mocked for swooning over the candidate.

A spate of critical columns, some of them by disaffected liberals who were once honorary McCainiacs, seemed to culminate last weekend on “Meet the Press” when Tim Russert asked:

“Are you concerned that people are going to say, ‘I see, John McCain tried “Straight Talk Express,” it didn’t work in 2000, so now in 2008 he’s going to become a conventional, typical politician, reaching out to people that he called agents of intolerance, voting for tax cuts he opposed, to make himself more appealing to the hard-core Republican base’?”

McCain said he fights for what he believes in and defended his rapprochement with the Rev. Jerry Falwell, whom he had branded an “agent of intolerance” six years ago.

As a cultural watershed, though, nothing compares with Jon Stewart asking McCain last week on “The Daily Show”: “Are you freaking out on us? . . . You’re killing me. I feel it’s a condoning of Falwell’s crazy-making.” more…

Stewart’s interview of the Senator over the Falwell flip-flop manages to be both pointed and hilarious. A video clip of the entire exchange is available on the Crooks And Liars website (here) and is well worth viewing. It will be interesting to see in the coming months whether John McCain continues to veer (rightward) from the course that has made him the successful and respected politician that he is in order to obtain the office he covets. He should know such Faustian bargains are fraught with peril. Personally, I think it would be a shame.