QC Examiner

Bob Novak’s book The Prince of Darkness is a fascinating read for any political/press junkie. He tells all the political inside juicy stuff from the past 50 years, when most of us weren’t born, weren’t politically aware or were distracted with other things in life.

As I’ve mentioned here from time to time, in ‘00 I backed John McCain for POTUS but I was only vaguely aware of what was happening with his national campaign—-all I knew was that by the time the Illinois primary rolled around, he had already been knocked out of the race.

At the beginning, George Bush was the “anointed one” even though no one knew much about him, but McCain knocked out the four other candidates and was coming on like gangbusters winning a string of primaries and eroding Bush’s support and it looked like he might win the nomination.

But just as he was positioned to make the break through by winning the Virginia primary, he did something incredibly stupid. The night before the primary, he denounced the religious Right, particularly Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, calling them “agents of intolerance”. Unfortunately for him, both men were Virginians and religious conservatives were and are a major voting bloc for the GOP.

Needless to say, his campaign was over.

So now we come to ‘08 where once again McCain came back from behind and back from the dead to be the nominee. So what does he do? It seems he over-learned his lesson from his ‘00 “agents of intolerance” screed and is now embracing “agents of intolerance” like the Rev. Hagee.

Sheesh!