IS THERE REALLY ANYTHING WRONG WITH JOHN W. McCAIN? GLAD YOU ASKED-- THE MEDIA DOESN'T

Yes, by all means, click on Venus in the half-shell

I'm reading the new book by David Brock and Paul Waldman, Free Ride: John McCain and the Media and if there is one overriding message it is that McCain is the national media's candidate. They are determined to install him in the White House and they work at it assiduously, sometimes openly, sometimes less openly. Yesterday MoveOn started a campaign to do what the media should be doing-- letting Americans know who McCain is besides just some politician they've hyped up into sainthood. He is certainly not who his smooth p.r. machine and the Washington press corps make him out to be. They put together "Ten things, all carefully documented, you should know about John McCain:"

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.

7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0-- yes, zero-- from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

The bloom is off the rose. But facts will never get in the way of the media's message. As Chris Matthews of MSNBC admitted, the media is his base. You will never hear them refer to him as a rubber stamp for all of Bush's economic and international policies, even as the news proves he is... day after day after day.