JOHN W. McCAIN-- YES, EVEN WORSE THAN GEORGE W. BUSH

One of the impressions I walked away with after a briefing at the DNC where polling data was shared with journalists and bloggers was that most Americans have vague impressions about McCain but that the "maverick" and "moderate" hype hasn't sunk in, regardless of how heavily pushed it has been by his allies in the Inside-the-Beltway media. Sycophants like Broder and Tweety can swoon over him all they like, but most Americans are still wondering who he is. An extensive page one story in today's Washington Post, one that was apparently kept away from Broder, goes a long way towards helping at least their readers to understand who the real John McCain is.

The Post writer, Michael Leahy, could have saved himself a lot of time and effort by reprinting Cliff Schecter's brilliant new book, The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him-- and Why Independents Shouldn't, but fortunately he used enough of Schecter's research and ideas to make the piece worthwhile. He starts with a well-documented scene of an angry and obviously deranged McCain attacking Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley at a Senate committee meeting. This particular time it only amounted to the much disliked McCain-- disliked by his Senate colleagues (except pathetic bottom feeders like Lieberman and Miss Lindsey)-- cursing, pushing and shoving, ever the high school spoiled bully. Later Leahy gets to Schecter's revelation about how McCain and fellow Arizona wingnut, Rick Renzi, actually got into a punch out (although, here too McCain's lobbyists swear up and down that it was just pushing and shoving and that no punches were thrown; witnesses say otherwise).

Since the beginning of McCain's public life, the many witnesses to his temper have had strikingly different reactions to it. Some depict McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee for president, as an erratic hothead incapable of staying cool in the face of what he views as either disloyalty to him or irrational opposition to his ideas... Former senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican, expresses worries about McCain: "His temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him... "I've witnessed a lot of his temper and outbursts. For me, some of this stuff is relevant. It raises questions about stability... It's more than just temper. It's this need of his to show you that he's above you-- a sneering, condescending attitude. It's hurt his relationships in Congress... I've seen it up-close."

And, then of course, there are the Lieber-men and others hoping to benefit from a McCain presidency, the ones who will say anything to cover up for him no matter how dangerous his instability and vindictiveness could be for America. Of course when is the last time anyone with a bit of credibility claimed that Lieberman gave a crap about America (or for Connecticut; Lieberman is all about Lieberman... and the Likud Party).

That temper has followed him throughout his life, McCain acknowledges. He recalls in his writings how, as a toddler, he sometimes held his breath and fainted during moments of fury. As the son of a naval officer who was on his way to becoming a four-star admiral, McCain found himself frequently uprooted and enrolled in new schools, where, as an underappreciated outsider, he developed "a little bit of a chip on my shoulder," as he recalled this month.

During a campaign stop at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, the most famous graduate of the Class of 1954 opened a window on what swirled inside him during his school years. "I was always the new kid and was accustomed to proving myself quickly at each new school as someone not to be challenged lightly," he told students.

"As a young man, I would respond aggressively and sometimes irresponsibly to anyone who I perceived to have questioned my sense of honor and self-respect. Those responses often got me in a fair amount of trouble earlier in life."

He defied authority, ridiculed other students, sometimes fought. The nicknames hung on him at Episcopal mocked his hair-trigger feistiness: "Punk" and "McNasty." Hoping to emulate his father and grandfather, also an admiral, he went on to the Naval Academy, where his pattern of unruliness and defiance continued, landing him near the bottom of his class. "I acted like a jerk," McCain wrote of the period before he righted himself to become a naval aviator, a Vietnam POW and eventually a career politician.

The trajectory of his temper, studied ever more intently as his White House ambitions took shape, includes incidents from his years in the House and in the Senate, leading up to the early days of his current presidential campaign. In 2007, during a heated closed-door discussion with Senate colleagues about the contentious immigration issue, he angrily shouted a profanity at a fellow Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, an incident that quickly found its way into headlines.

The ugly truth that no one in the media wants to get into, though, is what this temper and anger and feeling of being unfettered by the rules that govern the rest of us has led to one catastrophe after another in McCain's life, including half a dozen "accidents" involving plane crashes, one of which killed over 100 American sailors and destroyed tens of millions of dollars in planes. There is always, always, always an excuse, no matter how many times he would screw up-- and he was never to blame, even if the only constant in every single instance was... John McCain, the guy who didn't follow any rules. McCain: "In all candor, as an adult I've been known to forget occasionally the discretion expected of a person of my many years and station when I believe I've been accorded a lack of respect I did not deserve." Always the self-righteous asshole.

The Inside-the-Beltway media has always excused McCain's outrageous behavior and, in fact, tried to help him turn it to his own advantage, painting him as a kind of "Im-Angry-As-Hell-And-I'm-Not-Gonna- Take-It-Anymore kind of guy. Leahy is right on cue: "McCain has built much of his appeal, especially with independents, as the fiery maverick willing to defy both parties. His tempestuousness has girded him in high-stakes confrontations, especially against Republican conservatives who regard his occasionally moderate stances as proof that he has sold them out." And no one ever mentions, even when they report the facts, as Leahy does today, that McCain's howling angry and bully-boy attitude is very frequently directed towards women. He's the Senate's worst misogynist, especially if he senses he can frighten a woman into backing down.

Anyone who wants to see if it's possible for a worse president than George Bush-- with a possibility for even worse outcomes, ought to seriously consider voting for his political heir, John McCain. Everyone else... well, start by watching this new ad from our friends at the DNC: