Bob Somerby notes this remarkable passage from Richard Cohen:
And so it will be the job, the obligation, the solemn task of the next president to restore that trust. John McCain could do it. He's an honorable man who has fudged and ducked and swallowed the truth on occasion—about the acceptability of the Confederate flag, for instance—but always, I think, for understandable although not necessarily admirable reasons.
So when Maverick McStraightTalk suddenly decided to switch course and embrace a symbol of treason in defense of slavery and lawlessness in defense of apartheid, he did it for "understandable" reasons! And to pick a more recent and important example, presumably when he decided to stop worrying and love George Bush's massive upper-class tax cuts while also supporting enormously expensive perpetual war, this was understandable! And if sure this is true for all of his flip-flops!
What these "understandable" reasons are, of course, Cohen doesn't share. As near as I can tell, McCain's "fudging" and "swallowing the truth" is "understandable" because ... he was trying to win elections. How this makes him different from Hillary Clinton -- who Cohen savages while giving McCain a free pass -- I certainly can't tell you.
--Scott Lemieux
