In Columbus today, John McCain made his pitch that he, and not Barack Obama, is the candidate of hope. In a major if theoretical reversal of his commitment to a perpetual 100, a thousand or a million year American presence in Iraq, McCain declared that he "would hope to have achieved" a drawdown of most U.S. forces by the end of his first term in 2013. But given McCain's unbroken record of error of forecasting when it comes to Iraq, Americans should rightly view his new 10 year prediction with suspicion.

And with a total suspension of disbelief. In a speech that was more hypothetical thought exercise than policy address, McCain did his best John Lennon impersonation and asked Americans to "imagine all the people" (or at least most of them) back from Iraq by the end of his first term:

"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role."

While McCain's prognostication of peace, love and harmony in Iraq just 10 years after the U.S. invasion is a happy one, it should be viewed as nothing more as a charade that substitutes wishful thinking for serious policy. After all, as he has proved time and time again, John McCain's Iraq crystal ball is broken.

Here's is just a small sample of McCain's consistently - and devastatingly - wrong predictions for Iraq. From visions of a rapid U.S. victory and Americans being greeted liberators to finding weapons of mass destruction and turning the corner, John McCain was tragically mistaken each and every time.

"Look, we're going to send young men and women in harm's way and that's always a great danger, but I cannot believe that there is an Iraqi soldier who is going to be willing to die for Saddam Hussein, particularly since he will know that our objective is to remove Saddam Hussein from power."
John McCain, September 15, 2002.

"He's a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart."
John McCain, on Ahmed Chalabi, 2003.

"I remain confident that we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
John McCain, June 11, 2003.

"Absolutely. Absolutely."
John McCain, asked by Chris Matthews, "you believe that the people of Iraq or at least a large number of them will treat us as liberators?" March 12, 2003.

"There's no doubt in my mind that we will prevail and there's no doubt in my mind, once these people are gone, that we will be welcomed as liberators."
John McCain, March 24, 2003.

"I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks."
John McCain, January 28, 2003.

"It's clear that the end is very much in sight...It won't be long. It, it'll be a fairly short period of time."
John McCain, April 9, 2003.

"Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier?"
John McCain, responding to assertion by Fox News' Neil Cavuto that "many argue the conflict isn't over," June 11, 2003.

"I'm confident we're on the right course."
John McCain, March 7, 2004.

"We're either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months."
John McCain, November 12, 2006.

"My friends, the war will be over soon, the war for all intents and purposes although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years."
John McCain, February 25, 2008.

Facing the prospect of future beatings over his previous statements on an open-ended U.S. commitment in Iraq, John McCain is now asking Americans to forget he ever made them. McCain, too, is asking for national amnesia when it comes to his past attacks against Mitt Romney over supposed U.S. timetable for withdrawal. (Apparently, Americans should also disregard another now-abandoned McCain first-term pledge, balancing the budget.)

In his Columbus speech, the mythical maverick issued the equivalent of a disclaimer, saying, "I cannot guarantee I will have achieved these things." As they say, past performance is no guarantee of future results. In John McCain's case, let's hope not.

The once-vaunted Republican marketing machine has fallen and can't get up. On Monday, House minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) unveiled a new slogan for the GOP, only to learn that "The Change You Deserve," was fittingly already in use to market the anti-depressant drug Effexor. Now a central promise of the Republicans' 2008 rebranding effort, to balance the budget by 2012, is dead on arrival. As it turns out, Republican nominee John McCain already abandoned his short-lived, first term balanced budget pledge.

In the same unfortunate memo which comically proclaimed the GOP the party of change, Boehner and the House Republican leadership summarized their themes and promises for Americans' health, energy, national and economic security. Attacking the Democrats for "promises made, promises broken," the Republicans offered some bold promises of their own on the economy:

Economy. A stronger economy by stopping the largest tax increase in American history, cutting wasteful Washington spending, balancing the budget by 2012, passing serious entitlement reform and strengthening our housing sector.

Sadly, no one thought to first consult with the presidential nominee of their party. In April, just two months after promising to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term, John McCain gave up his pledge to erase the deficit by 2012.

Before abandoning his balanced budget pledge during his Pittburgh address yesterday, McCain had made it a feature on the campaign trail. For example, during a February 15th rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, "McCain promised he'd offer a balanced budget by the end of his first term." He told the audience that he could end the red ink by 2012:

"I've got to give you some straight talk: I doubt, given the deficits we're running, that I can propose a balanced budget in the first year. But that's my goal. It has to be our goal, because we're mortgaging these young people's future."

Alas, McCain's life as a deficit hawk was a short and unhappy one.

Even as Mr. Straight Talk was promising a 2012 end date for the budget deficit, his top economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin was reading from a different script, instead targeting the end of a McCain second term in 2017. And he should know. A month later, Holtz-Eakin, an architect of the McCain tax plan, admitted, "It will make deficits expand up front, no question." Just a day before McCain's April 15th economic address, Holtz-Eakin previewed the campaign's new position on balancing the budget:

"I would like the next president not to talk about deficit reduction."

For good reason. During an April 9th appearance at a Westport, Connecticut investment firm, McCain was grilled over his fuzzy math:

"Basically, which is it?" the man asked Mr. McCain. "Straight talk: Do you want to raise taxes, cut entitlement spending, cut defense spending, or have a deficit?"

McCain dutifully cited his idol Ronald Reagan as proivding the answer. Conveniently ignoring the fact that Reagan himself raised taxes three times and bequeathed a $300 billion deficit to his successor, McCain argued:

"That was when Ronald Reagan came to office in 1980. And so what did we do? We didn't raise taxes, and we didn't cut entitlements."

Of course, the McCain tax plan's budget-busting largesse to the wealthiest Americans would make Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush alike blush. As ThinkProgress meticulously detailed in late March, McCain has thrown budgetary caution to the wind:"

Our analysis suggests that the McCain plan shares five key characteristics of Bush policies. First, it is enormously expensive, costing more than $2 trillion over the next decade and essentially doubling the Bush tax cuts. Second, the McCain plan would predominantly benefit the most fortunate taxpayers, offering two new massive tax cuts for corporations and delivering 58 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. The Bush tax cuts provide 31 percent of their benefits to the top 1 percent of taxpayers.

Third, the McCain tax plan continues the shift of the tax burden from investment income onto earned income. Fourth, the plan not only fails to address current tax shelter problems in the tax code but in fact will lead to increased sheltering. Fifth, McCain cannot pay for his tax cuts without massive reductions in Social Security, Medicare, or other key programs that benefit the vast majority of Americans.

That assessment came before McCain's widely panned gas-tax holiday proposed last month.

Appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews that same day, John McCain explained his about-face on a first-term balanced budget by pleading, "economic conditions are reversed." (No doubt, President Bush would offer the same excuse for his broken 2004 promise to halve the budget deficit by 2009.) Sadly for John McCain, the only conditions which have changed over the past two months is that the American people started learning the truth about his tax plan.

Apparently, John Boehner and the House Republican leadership didn't get the memo. And given their third straight loss in Congressional special elections, Effexor might just what the doctor ordered.

In an interview today, George W. Bush made it clear that avoiding the links now was the least he could do after avoiding combat 40 years ago. As the Politico reported, the man who easily set the record for presidential vacation days didn't want to send the "wrong signal" to military families:

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization's high commissioner for human rights.

"I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life," he said. "I was playing golf - I think I was in central Texas - and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, 'It's just not worth it anymore to do.'"

Bush, wearing khakis and a knit shirt, was holding a driver in his gloved left hand. The rest of his foursome, including his father, former president George H.W. Bush, was waiting. However incongruous the setting, the president plunged ahead. "There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process that we have started, and we must not let them," he said. "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers."

His business out of the way, Bush barely paused for breath before saying, "Thank you. Now watch this drive."

(The video is available here.)

Unfortunately, Bush's golf abstinence sends mixed messages to the nation. After all, President Bush in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks urged the American people to mobilize for war by going shopping.

In March, President Bush offered a hint of the sacrifices he detailed today. Speaking to U.S. military and civilian personnel, Bush said of their service in the Afghanistan and Iraq war zones, "I must say, I'm a little envious."

No doubt, he heard about the greens in Tikrit, the sand traps in Fallujah, and those nasty bunkers in Tora Bora.

Back on March 9th, McCain offered a conditional apology for Hagee's slanders "if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics." Today, Hagee himself tried to help dig McCain out of the hole he created among America's 80,000,000 Catholics. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Hagee sought to make amends:

"Out of a desire to advance greater unity among Catholics and Evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful," Hagee wrote, according to an advanced copy of the letter reviewed by Washington Wire.

In the letter, addressed to Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League and one of Hagee's biggest critics, Hagee pledges "a greater level of compassion and respect for my Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ."

But while McCain "categorically" repudiated Hagee's anti-Catholic bigotry and labeled as "nonsense" Hagee's assertions that Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans as divine retribution for the city's "painful sin" of a "homosexual rally," the Arizona Senator has yet to reject Hagee's End of Days vision for war with Iran.

On February 27, 2008, Senator McCain shared a stage with the End Times minister and declared, "I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support." As it turns out, John McCain not only actively sought Hagee's endorsement. In 2007, McCain addressed Hagee's organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which just happens to believe the final biblical battle against the Anti-Christ will be fought by the United States - against Iran. During the annual CUFI conference in July 2006, John Hagee bluntly described his vision of Armageddon as foreign policy this way:

"The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West...a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."

On January 29, 2007, Hagee emailed a "Newflash" to CUFI members about a meeting he held that day with McCain. While noting that he did not "want to put the specifics of our conversation in this update" because "I don't want to read it in the media tomorrow," Hagee crowed about the future Republican presidential nominee:

"Senator McCain's comments concerning Israel are on target! He gets it!"

But what exactly is that McCain "gets?" During an April 2, 2006 interview by Tim Russert on Meet the Press, McCain gave a hint. Discussing Tehran's nuclear program and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's inflammatory rhetoric towards Israel, John McCain sounded as much preacher as president:

MR. RUSSERT: So we could have two wars at once?

SEN. McCAIN: I think we could have Armageddon. But I think that, that if we handle this right, and our European allies stand with us, and the Russians and the Chinese stand with us, sanctions might do the job. And I am confident that this administration will exhaust every effort before contemplating seriously a military option.

Russert, of course, did not follow up to clarify with McCain what he meant when he said "we could have Armageddon." Was he literally speaking of the final conflagration involving the mass conversion and killing of the Jews described in the Bible? Does John McCain believe, as Pastor Hagee clearly does, that American foreign and national security policy should be governed by the Book of Revelation?

During an April 2007 campaign event, John McCain joked about confrontation with Tehran, singing "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." But as tensions with Iran continue to rise, the end-times views of McCain supporter Hagee are no laughing matter. So 76 days after they shared that stage in San Antonio, the McCain-Hagee Armageddon watch continues. When will the American media ask John McCain the question he must answer: does John McCain agree with Pastor John Hagee that war with Iran is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy?

As he heads off to Israel to commemorate that nation's 60th anniversary, George W. Bush is nothing if not optimistic about the prospects for Middle East peace. Even as his negotiating partners are incapacitated by scandal and internal conflict, the lame duck President reiterated his January promise to produce an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement by the time he leaves office eight months from now.

Earlier this year during his first visit to the region, Bush assured the world that his better-late-than-never Annapolis peace process would result in a signed agreement during his presidency:

"I believe it's going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office...I'm on a timetable. I've got 12 months."

In an interview today with Al-Arabiya television, President Bush doubled-down on his earlier bet. Asked if an agreement can still be reached by the time he departs the White House, he repeated his pledge:

"Yes, I think so. That's what I'm aiming for, absolutely. We're pushing hard.''

President Bush might have wanted to first check in with his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. On April 29, Rice tried to reset expectations, telling an American Jewish audience that "we have a chance to reach the basic contours of a settlement by the end of the year." Bush himself briefly signaled a retreat during an April 24th meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, lowering his goal from a peace treaty, "I'm confident we can achieve the definition of a state." And during a press conference five days later, Bush remained ebullient about what then seemed to be more modest goals:

"I'm still hopeful we'll get an agreement by the end of my presidency. Condi is heading back out there. I've been in touch with President Abbas here in the Oval Office, and I talk to Prime Minister Olmert, and the attitude is good. People do understand the importance of getting a state defined."

Alas, President Bush's perpetually sunny disposition seems disconnected from events on the ground. Even amid the chaos and carnage in March as Israeli forces and Hamas forces battled in Gaza, Bush announced, "I'm still as optimistic as I was after Annapolis." Now, the prospects seem bleaker still, with Abbas still mired in Fatah's power struggle with Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert perhaps fatally weakened by the mushrooming corruption scandal enveloping his government. In an interview on Monday with the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, Bush made it clear he was undeterred:

Q: Mr. President, Prime Minister Olmert is under a corruption probe and is basically almost on the verge of being forced out from office. And his counterpart, Abu Abbas, is also very weak. So really the question is, do you still think that you can achieve peace until the end of 2008?

THE PRESIDENT: I do, yes.

Even though talks between Olmert and Abbas continue behind the scenes, the environment is not a promising one. As Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), recently put it:

"It's hard to remember a less auspicious time to pursue Arab-Israeli peacemaking than right now. The politics on the ground are absolutely miserable."

That won't dampen President Bush's enthusiasm in his latest mission to the region to press for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, halt the violence in Lebanon and, not insignificantly, "jawbone" the Saudis on the price of oil. After putting the road map for peace on the backburner for much of his presidency, Bush today reminded Al Arabiya, "I'm a peace man." As George W. Bush told Ha'aretz on Monday:

"And as I told you, I'm not running for the Nobel Peace Prize; I'm just trying to be a guy to use the influence of the United States to move the process along."

Judging by the headlines, John McCain's global warming pitch this week is having the desired effect. While CNN announced that "McCain appeals to independents with environment pitch," the Wall Street Journal declared, "McCain woos Democrats on environment." With Americans' support for President Bush and the direction of the country at record lows, John McCain is running away from his party and his president by stressing the environment, the only substantive issue on which he and George W. Bush disagree.

Last week, McCain ally Lindsey Graham (R-SC) gave a taste of things to come. The campaign's strategy, he suggested, was to use the environment as a cudgel to beat back those claiming McCain represented a third Bush term:

"I think there are a couple areas that would be different. One global climate change. John has been talking about global climate change for many years now. I think he would help lead the world to a solution there...John is his own guy. Good luck making him George Bush."

In eco-friendly Portland today, McCain as predicted turned to the environment and global warming to separate himself from the man he would replace. Announcing his own cap and trade regime to battle greenhouse emissions, McCain declared:

"We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great. The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge."

As part of McCain's global warming choreography, his campaign also began running a new ad in Oregon today proclaiming, "It's not just a greenhouse gas issue, it's a national security issue."

So far, McCain's gambit seems to be working. While the reliably right-wing Journal concluded McCain's plans to regulate CO2 emissions "more closely resembles the stance of his Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton," CNN similarly regurgitated:

"McCain's commitment to fight global warming puts him at odds with some Republicans in Congress and with the Bush administration, which has not made climate change a top priority. McCain's stance on carbon emissions places him closer on the environmental spectrum to Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton."

Worse still, leading environmental groups may be taking the bait. The WSJ reported that "the Sierra Club, one of the nation's most influential environmental groups, said the group might not endorse any candidate for president." (That, despite the Sierra Club's executive director Carl Pope's statement that "He's certainly better than Bush, and ... the average Republican senator" on environmental matters, but "dramatically worse than the average Republican governor.") Rodger Schlickheisen, president of the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, gave McCain mixed reviews:

"There's no question that among a lot of bad Republican votes in the Senate, he's one of the better ones. He is perhaps the most unpredictable, erratic, of those votes."

Erratic, indeed. As the Washington Post reported, McCain's record on the environment is uneven at best. He disappointed environmentalists with his December 2005 vote on drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR). McCain also parts company with his Democratic rivals not only on whether emissions credits should be auctioned, but on the expansion of nuclear power (which he supports) and the Kyoto Protocols (which he opposes). As the Washington Post summarized:

"But an examination of McCain's voting record shows an inconsistent approach to the environment: He champions some "green" causes while casting sometimes contradictory votes on others."

Of course, this week's greening of John McCain has little to do with the natural environment and everything to do with the political environment. McCain's pronouncements on the environment, global warming and greenhouse gas emissions are all part of a tightly orchestrated effort to create the facade of distance between himself and George W. Bush. With his campaign experiencing separation anxiety due to its closeness to President Bush on just about every other issue, McCain's environment road show is merely a smoke screen.

During the well attended but little understood nuptials, John McCain finally promised to love, honor and obey his new partner. Committing themselves to be together "us richer and others poorer, during others' sickness and our health," Bush and McCain exchanged moving vows which reflected their shared conservative traditions:

"To make permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest; to remain indefinitely in Iraq; to overturn Roe v. Wade; to make Samuel Alito the model for a conservative Supreme Court; to deny healthy insurance to more American children; to privatize Social Security; to dramatically expand the federal budget deficit, to get Osama Bin Laden dead or alive or at least follow him to the gates of Hell, to bring 'em on and to bomb bomb Iran."

Now forever joined at the hip, John McCain and George W. Bush had a rocky start to their relationship. Still, the two were betrothed at a lavish 2004 event in New York. Clearly over Bush's 2000 accusation that he had fathered an illegitimate black child, a blushing McCain at the March 5 celebration described his very significant other as "a man who I have a great admiration, respect and affection" for. For his part, President Bush smiled, "Johnny Mac? He had me at 'don't give me that shit and take your hands off me."

In just the latest blow to his tattered maverick myth, the McCain camp is signaling its man will perform yet another about-face on abortion. Eight years after attacking George W. Bush's defense of a Republican platform which called for banning all abortions, even in cases of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother, John McCain too will kowtow to the GOP's radical right. As it turns out, that surrender follows Mr. Straight Talk's earlier reversal on overturning Roe v. Wade.

During the 2000 campaign, John McCain ripped into then Governor George W. Bush for supporting a GOP abortion ban plank at odds with his stated position recognizing exemptions for rape, incest and the life and health of the mother. Just last year, the Arizona Senator reiterated that he wanted to revise the Republican platform to recognize those exceptions.

Alas, that was then, this is now. Already walking a tightrope between his party's conservative base and independent voters his campaign is now trying so hard to woo, John McCain is having yet another born-again experience on the issue. Facing threats from the likes of the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins (who claimed McCain would be "aborting his own campaign"), McCain backer Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) made clear the Republican nominee would likely abandon his earlier position. As ABC reported:

Despite McCain's support for changing the platform in 2000 and 2007, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., the co-chairman of McCain's Justice Advisory Committee, significantly downplays the possibility that McCain would revise the party's call for a nationwide constitutional ban on abortion with no exceptions.

"I don't think that's going to happen. I think you're going to see a platform process that is going to maintain that plank," said Brownback, a leading abortion rights opponent who endorsed McCain after ending his own White House bid.

"There are going to be a number of people supporting his nomination that want that plank left exactly as it is," he said. "They're going to be a strong majority."

Such a reversal would constitute John McCain's second major flip-flop on reproductive rights in 18 months, all in the cause of assuaging the Republican Party's suspicious social conservatives.

McCain in the run-up to his '08 presidential bid reversed course on the issue of overturning Roe v. Wade. In 1999, the supposed maverick was supposedly concerned about the health and safety of American women:

"I'd love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."

But by 2006 with his knee-bending to Jerry Falwell and others now well underway, McCain announced to ABC's George Stephanopolous that he not only wanted to see Roe overturned, but supported a constitutional amendment banning abortion as well:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask one question about abortion. Then I want to turn to Iraq. You're for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, with some exceptions for life and rape and incest.

MCCAIN: Rape, incest and the life of the mother. Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So is President Bush, yet that hasn't advanced in the six years he's been in office. What are you going to do to advance a constitutional amendment that President Bush hasn't done?

MCCAIN: I don't think a constitutional amendment is probably going to take place, but I do believe that it's very likely or possible that the Supreme Court should - could overturn Roe v. Wade, which would then return these decisions to the states, which I support.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you'd be for that?

MCCAIN: Yes, because I'm a federalist. Just as I believe that the issue of gay marriage should be decided by the states, so do I believe that we would be better off by having Roe v. Wade return to the states. And I don't believe the Supreme Court should be legislating in the way that they did on Roe v. Wade.

Ever since locking up the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has been trying to run away from both his party and his president and towards the middle of the road. On Sunday, his senior strategist Charlie Black engaged in some wishful thinking, labeling his McCain "slightly right of center." But when it comes to the abortion issue, as Jennifer Blei Stockman, the co-chairwoman of Republican Majority for Choice put it, "the word 'moderate' is going to disappear from any description of McCain."

UPDATE: CNN legal analyst and The Nine author Jeffrey Toobin notes that a McCain Supreme Court could overturn Roe in "maybe a year."

In the Times piece on McCain and Obama strategies for the fall campaign, the GOP lobbyist extraordinaire and enthusiastic Moonie Black made it clear his man would be undergoing an extreme makeover, faux moderate edition.

Mr. McCain's advisers said they would present him as a senator who frequently stepped across the aisle, while portraying Mr. Obama as a down-the-line Democratic voter who is ideologically out of touch with much of the country.

"We believe America is still a slightly right-of-center country, and that is what McCain is," said Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain. "If you look at Obama's base and his record, he is a pretty conventional liberal."

Sadly, Black's centrist label for the supposed maverick is wishful thinking belied by McCain's voting record and policy positions. And that rebranding comes after months of John McCain's efforts to sell himself as a "true conservative" to right-wing Republican primary voters.

During the height of his battle with Mitt Romney to capture the GOP nomination, John McCain was desperate to claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan and assuage social conservatives worried about his commitment to their cause. The result was an ad titled, "True Conservative" which McCain campaign ran heading into the decisive Super Tuesday primaries in early February:

McCain: "I enlisted as a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution."

Announcer: "Guided by strong conservative principles, he'll cut wasteful spending and keep taxes low. A proud social conservative who will never waver. The leadership and experience to call for the surge strategy in Iraq that is working. John McCain: The true conservative. Ready to be commander-in-chief on day one."

McCain's conservative street cred is backed up by his record in the Senate. Congressional Quarterly gave McCain a 90% score for "party unity," making him an even more reliable GOP water-carrier than fellow Arizonan John Kyl, the #2 ranking Republican in the Senate. The Washington Post similarly gave him a score of 88.3%, tying him with South Carolina's Lindsey Graham ahead of 29 other Senate Republicans.

Analyzing his Senate voting record since 1999, the Arizona Republic found that John McCain rarely strayed from the Republican Party line. As the Republic details, when the going got tough, McCain got in line. When it mattered most in the closest votes, Senator McCain since 1999 sided with his GOP colleagues. As it turns out, McCain "almost never thwarted his party's objectives." It is for good reason that Keith Poole, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego, concluded:

"He is a conservative who votes conservative on most issues. By no means is he a liberal or even a moderate."

And it's no wonder that back on January 23, 2008, Charlie Black confidently predicted that movement conservatives would be firmly in the McCain fold once he secured the nomination:

"All these conservative leaders will be for him in two weeks when we lock up the nomination."

Just in case, Black insisted, President Bush is "a political asset" for McCain in his bid to reassure the Republican right. To be sure, McCain's embrace of virtually the entire Bush agenda helped. As his quest for the GOP nomination heated up, McCain veered hard to the right in an effort to appease his party's conservative base. As I noted last month, McCain changed positions on:

The Bush tax cuts, Jerry Falwell and the Christian right, immigration reform, overturning Roe v. Wade, whether Justice Samuel Alito is a model for the Supreme Court, and France-bashing, just to name a few.

But that was then, this is now. Given the staggering unpopularity of his party's platform and president, John McCain is now running away from both. John McCain needed to be a "true conservative" to win the Republican nomination. To win the White House, he now needs to be "slightly right of center." At least, that is, according to Charlie Black.

What do Mothers' Day and global warming have in common? Both, as it turns out, are essential ingredients in John McCain's "character" campaign for the White House. That is, given the staggering unpopularity of his party's platform and president, John McCain is now running away from both. From here on out, the McCain campaign will be about the character of the man.

And on Mothers' Day this Sunday, that includes a portrait of John McCain as the good son. Appearing in a Hallmark-style TV spot with his 96 year old mother Roberta, McCain will offer Americans a supposedly humanizing moment for the supposed "maverick." (There's another ancillary benefit: the lightheartedly saccharine piece will also provide the one opportunity for McCain to be filmed with someone older than himself.)

After proving the dutiful son, John McCain will continue his post-nomination run to the center with what the campaign is billing as a "global warming tour." Designed to create space between McCain and George W. Bush by highlighting the one substantive issue where they differ, the series of events is design to entrench the media mythical image of McCain the Maverick unafraid to buck his GOP and its current occupant of the White House.

As I've suggested previously, McCain's attempt to convert the 2008 race into a contest of character between himself and Democrat Barack Obama is critical to Republican hopes of retaining the White House. If the GOP has its way, McCain the war hero and Republican renegade will be pitted against the out-of touch, Jeremiah Wright-loving, lapel pin-avoiding, effete anti-American elitist Barack Obama. Given Americans' overwhelming preference for Democratic positions and priorities, the GOP simply cannot win a 2008 election decided on the issues.

And that's just the beginning of the problems for McCain and his Republican allies. Having adopted virtually the entire Bush agenda, John McCain must separate himself from the President if he's going to win this fall. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 43% of Americans think John McCain is too closely aligned with President Bush. (As MSNBC's Chuck Todd noted, that makes George W. Bush - and not Jeremiah Wright - "the biggest political albatross heading into November.") Given that over 70% of Americans disapprove of President Bush and more than 80% believe the country is on the wrong track, it's no wonder Karl Rove, Lindsey Graham and the coordinated efforts of the McCain campaign and the White House are trying mightily to create the facade of distance between George W. Bush and his would-be successor.

So far, the McCain campaign is enjoying mixed results. A recent Rasmussen survey showed that Americans trust John McCain more than either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, even on issues like the economy where the candidate himself has professed his ignorance and voters violently disagree with him. But a subsequent poll released last week revealed that Americans by a 52% to 36% margin believe a presidential candidate's policy positions matter more than his or her character. (Unsurprisingly, Rasmussen found a sharp partisan divide on the question, with Republicans saying character counts most.)

Which is what the Mother's Day ad and the global warming tour are all about for the McCain campaign. Like John McCain's earlier "Biography Tour" and his so-called "Forgotten Places" events, Team McCain is trying to manufacture a kinder, gentler image of their candidate as a "different kind of Republican."

Of course,they have no choice. Because on the issues, John McCain is exactly the same kind of Republican as George W. Bush.

UPDATE: Echoing my language above, the Chicago Tribune describes how "McCain paints Obama's portrait." The Trib Swamp blog's take on McCain's upcoming character campaign?

"Day by day, week by week, McCain has been portraying Obama as inexperienced, self-entitled and effete, a candidate coddled by a loving press corps and lacking the judgment necessary for the highest office in the land."

Four days after Arianna Huffington first reported it, John McCain's 2000 VoteGate has become the election issue du jour. The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have all run stories confirming Huffington's account that in 2000 a still steaming McCain did not vote for George W. Bush, the man who savaged him and his family during the Republican primaries. But as the fevered denials from his campaign show, the story of McCain's hate-love relationship with Bush is the tale of Mr. Straght Talk's tightrope walk from personal pride to political opportunism.

McCain's past hatred for George W. Bush is the stuff of legend. As Time reported in March 2000, McCain showed a visceral disgust towards Bush and his scorched earth campaign:

But many close McCain advisers think the personal rift between the two men is too wide to bridge, at least in the near term. After all, the last time Bush tried to smooth things over-at a South Carolina debate in early February-the result was less than promising. During a commercial break, Bush grasped McCain's hands and made a sugary plea for less acrimony in their campaign. When McCain pointed out that Bush's allies were savaging him in direct-mail and phone campaigns, Bush played the innocent. "Don't give me that shit," McCain growled, pulling away. "And take your hands off me."

John McCain could certainly be forgiven for his anger, given the painful memories of character assassination, smears and lies the Bush camp dished out during the 2000 campaign. After McCain's upset win in the New Hampshire primary, Bush operatives during the critical South Carolina contest phoned voters with push polls implying McCain was anti-Catholic, his wife Cindy a drug addict, and that he had fathered an illegitimate black child with a prostitute. (In reality, the McCains had adopted a baby from an orphanage in Bangladesh.) McCain even received an early version of the Swift Boat treatment, with allegations that his Vietnam War captivity in Hanoi left him mentally unstable. All of these slurs came as candidate Bush chastised McCain that he couldn't "take the high horse and then claim the low road." It's no wonder he angrily rejected Bush's feigned attempt in 2000 to bury the hatchet.

But by 2004, John McCain was looking towards his next White House run - and life after Bush. McCain's presidential ambitions let him forgive sins past in order to rebuild relations with Bush and the Republican establishment. McCain's long road back began during election 2004. McCain not only stumped for George W. Bush, but joined the chorus of the Swift Boat hacks by stating that "what John Kerry did after the war is very legitimate political discussion." (Only the previous month, McCain himself called the attacks on Kerry "dishonest and dishonorable.") Dana Perino was exaggerating only slightly when she claimed today that "in 2000 and 2004, Senator McCain went on to work his tail off to help this president."

From there, the selling of John McCain's soul proceeded quickly and his Faustian bargain began to pay dividends. At the Southern Leadership Conference in March 2006, McCain McCain asked the delegates to throw their support to President Bush. McCain used the venue to offer a full-throated support of President Bush and his Iraq policy, proclaiming "We elected him, we need him, he needs to do well and the country needs him." McCain turned his vitriol towards the President's critics, claiming that anyone who said Bush lied about WMD in Iraq "was lying." By mid-2006, McCain had secured the backing of much of the Bush financial machine.

The rest, as they say, is history. With the GOP nomination still hanging in the balance, John McCain in February proclaimed, "I would be proud to have President Bush campaign with me and support me in any way that he feels is appropriate. And I would appreciate it." Having adopted virtually the entire Bush agenda in his 2008 run (including an acrobatic flip-flop on making the Bush tax cuts permanent), John McCain in March warmly accepted Bush's Rose Garden endorsement as coming from" a man who I have a great admiration, respect and affection" for.

But with the Republican nomination secured, McCain began the great walk back from George Walker Bush and his record-setting disapproval numbers. On April 1, 2008, McCain laughably claimed, "I'm not running on the Bush presidency." And during his so-called "Forgotten Places" tour, McCain lambasted Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina. (That show of disgust was merely that - a show. As it turns out, his campaign staff is closely coordinating with the White House to create the facade of separation between John McCain and George W. Bush.)

As the general election approaches, the Arizona Senator has completed his fawning courtship of George W. Bush. But in suppressing his burning hatred for Bush in the name of his no-holds barred pursuit of the White House, John McCain may yet pay a price with the American people. As the New Republic's Michael Crowley suggested last August, John McCain is about to learn "you can't un-sell out."

After all, John McCain isn't merely fabulously well off, courtesy of his wife Cindy's $100 million beer distribution fortune. At almost every turn, the Republican presidential nominee has shown almost a total ignorance of - or yawning disinterest in - the real lives of American voters. From the growing financial hardships of the economic slowdown and the foreclosure crisis to the disintegrating American health care system and the dangers U.S. troops face on the streets on Baghdad, it is John McCain who is truly "out of touch." Yet voters and pundits alike agree that the supposed maverick is treated with kid gloves by the press, an elitist masquerading as a man of the people.

Here, then, are John McCain's Top 10 "Out-of-Touch" Moments:

1. Economic downturn is "psychological." Having on multiple occasions admitted his limited understanding of the economy, Senator McCain instead turned armchair psychologist to diagnose the U.S economic slowdown. In April, McCain told Fox News' Neil Cavuto that "a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological." Apparently, four months of job losses, oil at $120 a barrel, record gas prices at the pump, 47 million uninsured and a devastating home foreclosure crisis are merely a figment of Americans' imaginations.

2. "Great progress economically" during the Bush years. If Americans' financial woes are all in their heads, John McCain's assessment of George W. Bush's economic leadership is pure hallucination. Asked by Bloomberg's Peter Cook on April 17 if Americans would say they are better off today "than before George Bush took office more than seven years ago," McCain replied:

"I think if you look at the overall record and millions of jobs have been created, et cetera, et cetera, you could make an argument that there's been great progress economically over that period of time."

Mugged by reality, McCain's firm response to the classic Ronald Reagan question ("are you better off now?") lasted exactly 24 hours. The next day on April 18, the so-called maverick acknowledged Americans are "hurting badly" and concluded, "Americans are not better off than they were eight years ago."

3. eBay is the answer for poverty and recession. During his so-called "Forgotten Places" tour last month, John McCain offered the people of the economically devastated regions in Martin County, Kentucky and Youngstown, Ohio a path out of financial desperation: eBay. "Today, for example," McCain said, "1.3 million people in the world make a living off eBay, most of those are in the United State of America." If that sounds like something McCain's national campaign co-chair and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman might say, it's because she did. In March, she told Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, "We have about - around the world, about 1.3 million people make most, if not all, of their living selling on eBay." (It should come as no surprise that President Bush, too, extolled the virtues of Americans' economic futures as sellers on eBay.)

4. "Tear down" New Orleans? McCain kicked off his tour in New Orleans, where he lambasted George W. Bush's handling of the Katrina disaster. (As it turns out, McCain's criticism was choreographed with the White House as part of a coordinated effort to create the facade of distance between McCain and President Bush.) There, McCain would not commit to the future of the city's devastated 9th ward:

"That's why we need to go back to have a conversation about what to do about it. Rebuild it? Tear it down? Ya know, whatever it is."

Just three days later, McCain claimed selective amnesia about his New Orleans comments, saying, "I don’t remember ever saying it." Perhaps John McCain remembers celebrating his 69th birthday with President Bush on August 29, 2005, just as Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore.

5. Irresponsible, undeserving homeowners. In his widely panned March 25th address on the economy, John McCain essentially blamed American homeowners teetering on the brink of foreclosure for their plight, insisting "any assistance must be temporary and must not reward people who were irresponsible at the expense of those who weren't." Facing a backlash, McCain just two weeks later on April 11 rolled out new proposals, claiming his "priority number one is to keep well meaning, deserving home owners who are facing foreclosure in their homes." As the New York Times concluded:

In both tone and substance, Mr. McCain's remarks were something of a departure from a speech the senator delivered last month in California in which he warned that "it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."

6. Work a second job, skip a vacation. In that same March 25, 2008 speech, the Republican nominee made it clear that selling Barbie dolls or Hummel figurines on eBay isn't John McCain's only prescription for Americans facing economic difficulties. The other? Just work harder. McCain encouraged Americans to emulate the 51 million homeowners "doing what is necessary -- working a second job, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets -- to make their payments on time."

7. "Protect the privacy" of Cindy McCain's tax returns. Asking cash-strapped, over-worked Americans to labor harder is easy to say for John McCain. After all, his beer heiress second wife Cindy has a fortune estimated at $100 million, more than enough to provide the candidate with private jets and still fund the McCain's 8 homes and the charitable contributions funneled to the elite private schools attended by their children.

But asking John McCain to release his wife's tax return is another matter. His campaign claims, "Cindy McCain will not release her tax returns to protect the privacy of her four children; details of their wealth are included in her filing." Of course, in 2004, then RNC chairman and current Bush counselor Ed Gillespie insisted that the content of Theresa Heinz Kerry's tax filings was "a legitimate question." By a whopping 64% to 22% margin, Americans believe that John McCain should make public his wife's tax information.

8. Opposed to SCHIP expansion, McCain speaks at children's hospital. Last October, John McCain joined George W. Bush in opposing the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), calling Bush's veto a "right call by the president." Of course, that didn't stop McCain from rolling out his health care proposals last week at Miami Children's Hospital, a Florida medical institution which last fall publicly supported the S-CHIP expansion he opposed. In a further irony, while McCain decried "new mandates and government regulation," 9 year-old Jake Bernard who was spotlighted at the event received treatment for his cleft palate thanks to a statute passed by the state of Florida. So much for McCain's pledge to "work to eliminate the worries over the availability and cost of health care."

9. Baghdad safer than some American neighborhoods. John McCain's isn't merely out of touch when it comes to Americans' real lives at home. He is consistently nonchalant about the dangers – and casualties – U.S. troops face in Iraq.

Wearing a bulletproof vest and guarded by "100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead," McCain on April Fool's Day 2007 briefly toured a Baghdad market to demonstrate that the American people were "not getting the full picture."

McCain recently claimed that there "are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today." In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to the market today was proof that you could indeed "walk freely" in some areas of Baghdad.

In March 2008, Senator McCain returned to a tried and untrue Republican talking point: Iraq is no more dangerous than most major American cities. McCain announced, "There's problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know." In this case, at least, even McCain realized his statement was nonsensical on its face and sounded the retreat. "I'm not making that comparison, because it's much more deadly in Iraq obviously," he said, adding, "But it's kind of the same theory." Apparently, McCain's theory applies whether the United States maintains a permanent military presence in Iraq for 100, 1000 or even a million years.

10. "I'm not running on the Bush presidency." On April 1, 2008, John McCain offered Americans another April Fool's joke, proclaiming "I'm not running on the Bush presidency." McCain might want to check his campaign's position papers. After all, in his eternal quest for the Republican nomination, McCain has adopted virtually the entire Bush agenda, often reversing long held positions and compromising supposed core principles. From Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthy, broken promises on the deficit to opposition to SCHIP, tax credits for health care, overturning Roe v. Wade and a right-wing Supreme Court, John McCain represents a third Bush term. It's no wonder Mr. Straight Talk said in February:

"I would be proud to have President Bush campaign with me and support me in any way that he feels is appropriate. And I would appreciate it."

So would we.

(Note: I originally posted this piece at Crooks and Liars.)

Today, John McCain's wife Cindy declared she would never release her tax returns. Unfortunately, the McCains are bucking the tide of public opinion regarding her income and $100 million fortune. The American people by lopsided margins overwhelmingly believe presidential candidates should disclose their tax returns. And as they showed four years ago in the imbroglio over Theresa Heinz Kerry, the leading lights of the Republican Party and the conservative movement used to agree.

The polling data is clear. Last week, a Rasmussen survey reported that "sixty-four percent (64%) believe that Presidential candidates and their spouses should be required to release their tax returns," with only 22% supporting secrecy.

Virtually the entire Republican brain trust and its amen corner in the media agree. Or at least they did four years ago, when the subject was Democrat Theresa Heinz Kerry and her vast fortune. Despite eventually releasing a two-page summary of her 2003 income, the Kerrys were pilloried by the same conservative machine that is silent now.

Ed Gillespie, then Republican National Committee Chairman and current counselor to President Bush, is a case in point. As the New York Times reported:

Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican Party, said Mrs. Heinz Kerry's finances were relevant to the campaign, especially because Mr. Kerry borrowed $6 million against the equity in a Boston town house they jointly own to keep his campaign afloat earlier in the year.

''It seems to me that that's a legitimate question,'' Mr. Gillespie said.

The right-wing National Review, too, deployed its attack dogs in force. Editor Andrew Stuttaford was unsatisfied with the Kerrys' limited disclosure:

"Could it be, who knows, that Teresa was a little stingy last year, or could it be, perhaps, that she gave to some charities that might prove a little embarrassing in an election year?

Baseless innuendo? Very possibly. But there's an easy way to show that these suggestions are completely unfair. Disclose the full form, Teresa. Privacy? Oh, come off it. How can disclosure of any part of Mrs. Kerry's personal 1040 relate to her children, all of whom are now in their thirties?"

Meanwhile, NRO's Donald Luskin declared Mrs. Kerry "filthy rich" and asked "Mrs. Kerry is filthy rich. Why is her taxable income so small?" Suspecting something fishy in Mrs. Kerry's "miniscule" $5million in income on an estate estimated to top at least $1 billion, Luskin insisted:

"Voters of both parties should demand immediate and full disclosure of Teresa Heinz Kerry's holdings and tax returns. There is ample precedent: In 1984 the husband of Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro made his tax returns public in response to pressure from voters. Today the stakes are greater in every way. Mrs. Kerry's disclosure should be no less."

Earlier that year, Matthew Continetti penned a Weekly Standard piece, titled "Kerry's Wife: Above Suspicion?" in which he demanded to know "why won't Theresa Heinz Kerry release her tax returns? Inquiring minds like Continetti's wanted to know more about their theory of Theresa as Sugar Mommy:

"Making Heinz's tax returns public would confirm that she's Kerry's sugar daddy (sugar mommy?). It would also strike a blow against Kerry's populist rhetoric by detailing the lavish lifestyle he and his wife enjoy: the vacation home in Nantucket, the ski chalet in Ketchum, Idaho, the estate outside Pittsburgh, the Georgetown manse. Not to mention the red-and-white Gulfstream jet. And the tax returns could embarrass the Kerry campaign further if it's revealed that Heinz has contributed to independent organizations working to unseat President Bush."

Fast forward four years. Today's GOP and its allies among the conservative chattering classes have no intention of pressing Cindy and John McCain for details about her massive financial assets which fueled both their lavish lifestyles and his political career.

The same factors that drove Republicans to fury over Mrs. Kerry - riches, a foundation, a private jet, a stable of elegant homes - produce silence when it comes to Mrs. McCain. After all, John McCain's beer heiress second wife has a fortune estimated at $100 million, more than enough to provide the candidate with private jets and still fund the McCain's 8 homes and the charitable contributions funneled to the elite private schools attended by their children.

Back in 2004, Theresa Heinz Kerry argued, "What I have and what I receive is not just mine, it is also my children's, and I don't know that I have the right to make public what is theirs." In almost identical language the McCain campaign now argues, "Cindy McCain will not release her tax returns to protect the privacy of her four children; details of their wealth are included in her filing." And today, Cindy McCain herself claimed, "This is a privacy issue."

Meanwhile in the right-wing media, there is only the sound of silence.

On Wednesday, John McCain's home state Arizona Republic did some good excavation work in the ongoing demolition of the GOP nominee's maverick myth. Analyzing his Senate voting record since 1999, the paper found McCain rarely strayed from the Republican Party line. But that's only a small part of the unraveling of the McCain maverick fable. As I previously detailed, John McCain in his eternal quest for the GOP nomination has repeatedly reversed long-held positions and compromised core principles to curry favor with right-wing Republican primary voters.

As the Republic details, when the going got tough, McCain got in line. When it mattered most in the closest votes, Senator McCain since 1999 sided with his GOP colleagues. As it turns out, McCain "almost never thwarted his party's objectives":

The presumptive Republican nominee arguably cast the decisive vote 14 times since 1999 to ensure Republicans got their way, and he had five other close cases where his vote may have made a difference, Senate records show. By comparison, McCain effectively handed Democrats a win on roll-call votes four times in the same period. On one of those occasions, Republicans could still have won if Vice President Dick Cheney had cast a tie-breaking vote.

That voting record is just another feather in John McCain's conservative cap. Congressional Quarterly gave McCain a 90% score for "party unity," making him an even more reliable GOP water-carrier than fellow Arizonan John Kyl, the #2 ranking Republican in the Senate. The Washington Post similarly gave him a score of 88.3%, tying him with South Carolina's Lindsey Graham ahead of 29 other Senate Republicans. It is for good reason that Keith Poole, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego, concluded:

"He is a conservative who votes conservative on most issues. By no means is he a liberal or even a moderate."

The Arizona Republic also unearthed more evidence for McCain's iron law of right-wing pandering. That is, McCain's closeness to the GOP party line is directly proportional to the proximity of Republican presidential primaries:

During the 10 years The Republic examined, McCain crossed over to vote with Democrats 19 times in 82 close votes. He did so just once in the four years he was running for president: 1999, 2000, 2007 and 2008. All 12 of the close votes he missed happened in those years, too.

Even so, in 59 of the 82 close votes, Republicans got what they wanted regardless of McCain's position. In those 59 cases, McCain broke with his party 16 times.

But what the Republic's analysis didn't address is John McCain's litany of gymnastic contortions and just-in-time flip-flops during his run for the Republican nomination. As his quest for the GOP nomination heated up, McCain veered hard to the right in an effort to appease his party's conservative base. As I noted last month, McCain changed positions on:

The Bush tax cuts, Jerry Falwell and the Christian right, immigration reform, overturning Roe v. Wade, whether Justice Samuel Alito is a model for the Supreme Court, and France-bashing, just to name a few.

The Arizona Republic piece is a hopeful sign that perhaps, at long last, the American media will reconsider the crown of maverick wrongly placed on John McCain's head. (The story comes just a day after MSNBC's Tim Russert agreed with a recent New York Times survey showing that Americans believe the press has been too easy on McCain.) Perhaps the untold story of campaign 2008 - John McCain's transformation from maverick to political prostitute - will now be told.

Speaking at Wake Forest University today, Republican presidential nominee John McCain reassured his party's conservative base that he has adopted George W. Bush's judicial philosophy hook, line and sinker. The same John McCain who once expressed doubts about judges in the mold of Samuel Alito today extolled him as a model for the Supreme Court, all the while chanting the right-wing battle cry against so-called judicial activism.

Given his past flip-flop on Roe v. Wade (he now supports overturning the decision after stating in 1999 that "I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade"), it's no surprise McCain's address completely omitted any mention of Roe or abortion. But John McCain's hard right turn extends well beyond reproductive rights. Throughout the 2008 campaign, he has gone to great lengths to calm conservatives that President McCain would put their kind of people on the Supreme Court.

Today was no exception. Decrying "abuses by the courts" which "fall under the heading of "judicial activism," McCain echoed hard line conservatives from Justice Sunday events past:

"For decades now, some federal judges have taken it upon themselves to pronounce and rule on matters that were never intended to be heard in courts or decided by judges."

The answer, McCain insisted, was for more judges along the lines of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, President Bush's two appointees each opposed by Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton:

"I have my own standards of judicial ability, experience, philosophy, and temperament. And Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito meet those standards in every respect. They would serve as the model for my own nominees if that responsibility falls to me."

Of course, John McCain hasn't always felt this way. But as in so many areas, the supposed maverick had a conversion on the way to the Republican nomination.

During the 2005 "up or down vote" controversy over Bush judicial nominations, McCain earned the wrath of conservatives for his membership in the so-called Gang of 14. McCain, after all, was one of the leaders of the bipartisan group of 14 Senators seeking a middle ground between the Democrats' filibuster threats and Majority Leader Bill Frist's nuclear option.

(It is worth noting that some on the right, such as the National Review's Adam White and Kevin White, now laud McCain precisely because he protected the ability of Republicans to filibuster future Democratic judicial nominations. "When that moment arrives," they wrote, "conservatives will call on the Republican minority to utilize every tool in the Senate minority playbook to thwart those nominations--especially the filibuster.")

Still, McCain's greater act of apostasy came on the types of judges he himself would support on the Supreme Court bench. Earlier this year, McCain faced a firestorm of right-wing criticism when John Fund, writing in the Wall Street Journal, claimed McCain was opposed to the nomination of a hardline conservative like Justice Samuel Alito:

More recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because "he wore his conservatism on his sleeve."

In a fiery January 2008 column titled, "Is McCain a Conservative?" Robert Novak backed up Fund's account:

"Wouldn't it be great if you get a chance to name somebody like Roberts and Alito?" one lawyer commented. McCain replied, "Well, certainly Roberts." Jaws were described as dropping. My sources cannot remember exactly what McCain said next, but their recollection is that he described Alito as too conservative.

Aware of the consequences with the conservative movement, McCain was quick to proclaim his fealty to their far-right judicial ideals. As he told the National Review's Byron York:

"Let me just look you in the eye," McCain told me. "I've said a thousand times on this campaign trail, I've said as often as I can, that I want to find clones of Alito and Roberts. I worked as hard as anybody to get them confirmed. I look you in the eye and tell you I've said a thousand times that I wanted Alito and Roberts. I have told anybody who will listen. I flat-out tell you I will have people as close to Roberts and Alito [as possible], and I am proud of my record of working to get them confirmed, and people who worked to get them confirmed will tell you how hard I worked."

So in North Carolina today, Mr. Straight Talk in essence gave Americans a chance to meet the McCain Supreme Court. Same as the Bush Court.

Mrs. Bush's prepared remarks and responses to reporters' questions showed why the White House concluded that the safest course for President Bush was to stay away. Had she issued these statements in September 2005, observers would have assumed the First Lady was criticizing her husband:

"It's troubling that many of the Burmese people learned of this impending disaster only when foreign outlets -- such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America -- sounded the alarm. Although they were aware of the threat, Burma's state-run media failed to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm's path.

The response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta's failure to meet its people's basic needs."

This exchange about the Burmese government's response - and responsibility - for the staggering cyclone death toll of 22,000 is particularly telling:

Q: Why do you think that the government didn't allow the state-run media to post those warnings?

MRS. BUSH: I don't know. I have no idea.

Q: Quick follow on that. Do you think that they have blood on their hands for that lack of warning?

MRS. BUSH: Well, I just think it's very, very important -- that we know already that they are very inept; that they have not been able to govern in a way that lets their company -- country, for one thing, build an economy. This is a country that's rich in natural resources. Their natural resources are being depleted as they sell them off, as far as we can tell from the outside, for the financial benefit of the regime itself and not for the good of the people. We know that.

Of course, the parallels between the Bush and Burmese preparation for and responses to Hurricane Katrina and Cyclone Nargis aren't perfect. On August 28, 2005, New Orleans Mayor Ray Hagin issued a mandatory evacuation order for his city. That afternoon, the National Weather Service published a dire advisory for the category 4 to 5 storm, warning "most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer" and "at least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure," while concluding "water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards."

President Bush knew all of this. Video footage of a briefing Bush received the day before Katrina hit revealed that the President was warned that "that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers." As CBS News reported:

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

Four days later on September 1, 2005, George W. Bush issued the statement that defined his administration historic bungling of Hurricane Katrina:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

At Monday's press conference, no reporter asked the First Lady why her husband wasn't there himself to address the Burmese crisis. (There were, however, several probing questions about her daughter Jenna's wedding in Texas this weekend.) This is as close as the American media got to inquiring about the President Bush's glaring absence:

Q: Mrs. Bush, why such an historic interest? This is a first, for a First Lady to come to this podium and talk about a cyclone. Why such a historic interest?

MRS. BUSH: Well, you know I've been interested in Burma for a long time. It started really with an interest in Aung San Suu Kyi and reading her works and just the story of a Nobel Prize winner who's been under house arrest for so long,

It's true that Mrs. Bush has emerged as something of a spokesperson for the White House when it comes to the causes of human rights and democracy in