Apropos John Kerry's magnificent speech last night (also see this great article on Kerry by Jason Zengerle), there is a real difference between candidate McCain and the McCain of the past, and nothing emphasizes it more than this interview with Time magazine:
There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us? Read it in my books.
I've read your books.No, I'm not going to define it.
But honor in politics?I defined it in five books. Read my books.
[Your] campaign today is more disciplined, more traditional, more aggressive. From your point of view, why the change?
I will do as much as we possibly can do to provide as much access to the press as possible.
But beyond the press, sir, just in terms of ...
I think we're running a fine campaign, and this is where we are.
Do you miss the old way of doing it?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Really? Come on, Senator.
I'll provide as much access as possible ...
In 2000, after the primaries, you went back to South Carolina to talk about what you felt was a mistake you had made on the Confederate flag. Is there anything so far about this campaign that you wish you could take back or you might revisit when it's over?
[Does not answer.]
Do I know you? [Says with a laugh.]
[Long pause.] I'm very happy with the way our campaign has been conducted, and I am very pleased and humbled to have the nomination of the Republican Party.
You do acknowledge there was a change in the campaign, in the way you had run the campaign?
[Shakes his head.]
You don't acknowledge that? O.K., when your aides came to you and you decided, having been attacked by Barack Obama, to run some of those ads, was there a debate?
The campaign responded as planned.
It's sad, really. At one point John McCain was his own man. And now's he just another politician, a puppet of the kill-or-be-killed political operatives he has hired to win this race for him, reduced to shaking his head silently at questions he once would have had the nerve to answer forthrightly.
--Tim Fernholz
