mccain_wow.thumbnail.jpgFor Harry Reid, who really is a believer in bipartisanship and Senate comity to say this is surprising:

 "I've served with the man 26 years," Reid said. "Do I have the ability to speak with experience about someone who has abused everyone he's dealt with? Someone who does not have the temperament to be president, who's wrong on the war, wrong on the economy, wrong on nuclear waste. What am I supposed to do? Walk around talking about what a great guy he is? I don't believe that. .... "

 One of the most self-defeating rhetorical devices of the convention has been the way every Democratic speaker has felt the need to preface their attacks on McCain with ritual statements of how McCain is an honorable brave man who loves his country.  Often, indeed, they say he'd be a great president.  Perhaps McCain's POW status makes certain attacks on him off-limits, but this incessant praise from Democrats merely reinforces the myth of McCain as the great honorable daddy figure who is strong and principled.  It's crazy and what's worse, most of them probably don't even believe it. 

McCain's an asshole.  He's a man who called his wife a c*nt in public.  He has a violent temper and he's hated by many of his colleagues.  And most of them are wandering around pretending that he's some sort of plaster saint.

I don't say this lightly.  Heck, I liked George Bush Sr., unlike a lot of folks, for example.  You can be a good man, and a Republican.  But you can't abuse everyone around you and be a good man. Democrats need to learn from Reid and stop pulling their punches.