You know how McCain is. He spins his campaign opponents into Beelzebub. He did it with Dubya and he did it with poor, hapless Mitt "Mittens" Romney. That's just how old cranky rolls. Very Us-versus-Them stuff, that.
Still, for the sake of Presidential history, it is instructive to note at which point in time John Sidney McCain stopped seeing Senator Barack Obama as a skinny but tough American Senator and transformed him, cold-bloodedly into a dusky Musolini. From next weekends harsh NYTimes Magazine meta narrative of the McCain narrative:
"Authenticity means everything to a man like McCain who, says (Mark) Salter, 'has an affinity for heroes, for men of honor.' Conversely, he reserves special contempt for those he regards as arrogant phonies. A year after Barack Obama was sworn into the Senate, Salter recalls McCain saying, 'He’s got a future, I’ll reach out to him' — as McCain had to Russ Feingold and John Edwards, and as the liberal Arizona congressman Mo Udall had reached out to McCain as a freshman. McCain invited Obama to attend a bipartisan meeting on ethics reform. Obama gratefully accepted —but then wrote McCain a letter urging him to instead follow a legislative path recommended by Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate. Feeling double-crossed, McCain ordered Salter to 'send him a letter, brush him back a little.' Since that experience, says a Republican who has known McCain for a long time, 'there was certainly disdain and dislike of Obama.'"
Must reading analysis of the erratic McCain campaign here.
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