If McCain thought he’d get the week all to himself while the Obamas are on vacation, he can think again:

…as Washington embraced him, John McCain hugged right back.

The lobbyists – running his low road campaign.

The money – billions in tax breaks for oil and drug companies, but almost nothing for families like yours….

My favorite part? The visuals of McCain. Unlike McCain’s lackluster, juvenile ad attempts of late — wherein he tries to get in a cheap shot or two while using photos of Obama looking presidential, Team Obama appears to grasp a fundamental truth about the ad wars: people hate commercials, and often turn off the sound.

And the visuals of John McCain in this ad? We have several hugs with George Bush, a cadre of lobbyists following McCain at one point, and it’s smarm central with pix of his facial expressions. Watch and see what you think.

And how does this ad square with the reality of John McCain?

He just held a joint fundraiser with Ralph "praise the Lord and pass the collection plate" Reed. Apparently that religion gap McCain is feeling is starting to pinch enough that he’s now sucking up to Reed in religious desperation. Shouldn’t come as a shocker given that he’s already kissed and made nice with Grover Norquist and has Karl Rove advising him while doing media PR and running 527 interference for Freedom’s Watch at the same time.

It’s truly the craptastic trifecta with those three, isn’t it?

Those pesky campaign finance questions just got even murkier for the Maverick’s tainted money trail.  McCain’s also flipflopped on tobacco policy (hi, Charlie Black!), on foreign policy, and any number of other issues this week, prompting The Long Goodbye to propose a "six degrees of separation" from a McCain flipflop and which lobbyist on his bloated campaign staff had a hand in the fetid pie. Ooooh, Grand Ole Party games!

Guess that explains why Joe Klein’s gone so sour on McCain of late:

"…he is running a campaign filled with lies about his opponent’s positions, a campaign that is conducted in a snarky, subversive tone that is entirely inappropriate to American politics….If tearing down Obama is the only way he can win–and this should be obvious, but apparently it isn’t–McCain doesn’t deserve to win."

Ouch.