WP:John McCain Comes in from Cold(downplays Kerry friendship; run in '08?)

[DeepModem Mom]

John McCain Comes In From the Cold

By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 30, 2004; Page C01


....there has been a marked shift in the warmth with which McCain has discussed Bush in recent weeks -- and, more subtly, in how he talks about Kerry. While much has been made of their friendship, McCain, according to sources close to him, has grown weary of Kerry's constant mentions of it. He publicly objected to Kerry's reference in a recent ad to Bush's campaign tactics against McCain in 2000. (Kerry promptly pulled the ad.)

Asked if Kerry has overstated the closeness of their bond, McCain says, "Yes and no."

"Yes, in that we've spent a lot of time working on issues, flying to Vietnam, doing a lot of that kind of professional Senate work," McCain says. "No, in that I've never socialized with him. I've never been to his house for dinner. We've never invited him out to Arizona."...

***

"I've been to John's house in Georgetown once," John McCain says of Kerry, "like six or seven years ago. And I've never been invited up to Nantucket. Or Sun City. I mean Sun Valley . Or whatever."

McCain says he feels he has no fences to mend at the convention this week. But he is proceeding like a man shopping for goodwill in the GOP, a realm where his loyalty is, at best, suspect. A subtext to McCain's intra-party goodwill tour is that he may run for president again in 2008. It's a prospect he denies -- if not definitively -- but one that has been discussed within his circle and among party insiders....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45325-2004Aug29.html

[lottie244]

1. I wouldn't want to be in fox hole with McCain

I give him his props for enduring being a prisoner of war, but as far as actually being a comrade in combat...no thanks.

[JohnKleeb]

2. Isnt he gonna be 72 then?

[diplomats]

17. I thought he was going to be too old to run, too

[acmavm]

3. McCain has not been the best judge of character in the past. For sport,

Google Charles Keating or the Keating Five.

McCain has a knack of going where the money and whatever he perceives as benefiting himself are, not necessarily traveling the high road.

I have never understood the national fascination with John McCain. Prisoner of war is all he has to go on. And the bush* administration, well we all know what the bush* administration said about John McCain while he was a prisoner of war. Not that I'm saying it's true, but that he's willing to 'get in bed' with those same people. John McCain is an opportunist. One of the best.

[luaneryder]

4. I admire McCain for having survived

war and POW, but any other respect for him went out the window when I saw the photo of him slobbering all over *. That shot looked like the all mighty * welcoming an errant follower back into the fold with sham forgiveness. It makes me puke that McCain is willingly supporting a person who went for his throat just months ago and courting the GOP like a starving dog begging handouts.

[searchingforlight]

5. Yeah - - - - and he wouldn't be a polarizing figure. What a joke.

[wakfs]

6. No way the Bush Crime Family lets McCain run in '08

It'll be Jeb's turn then!

Oh what a show it will be, the GOP moderates running against another Bush and all his right-wing religious nutjob backers.

[SquireJons]

16. Not if shrub fails this year.

If * fails to win (re?)election, I think that will be the end for the bush crime family in national politics. At least for a few generations. Repugs don't back losers anymore. The days of Goldwater and Reagan (before 1980) are gone. The rule now is: 'If you lose an election, you cost us a lot of money. Get lost.'

There's no way the bush's survive a second one term presidency and still have support within the repug's true constituency - big business.

They'll still be rich, and still have some influence, but if we defeat bush now, we won't have to deal with jeb (in fact I think he'll be defeated if he runs again in Florida) - or any other bush spawn.

[rocktivity]

7. He's taking advantage of the fact that Kerry pulled that commerical

of him dissing Bush for sliming him. START RUNNING IT AGAIN!

:headbang:
rocknation

[leesa]

8. His career is over and he ended it shamefully.

[ellie]

9. As if!

Like McCain is ever going to be president! Like the Bushes are going to let him! Did McCain forget that Jeb is waiting in the wings for a presidential run in 2008? Poor John McCain, not only is lying with dogs, he is delusional as well. I think he has finally went 'round the bend.

[democrank]

10. Wave bye-bye to your chance at being president, John

and give another bear hug to the idiot who trashed you, your wife and your child. Party over family and country, that`s what I say.

[Stuckinthebush]

11. How pathetic

Here we have a man who once understood honor. Now he crawls (gladly) in bed with the man who trashed him and killed his chances of being president based on lies about his mental condition and his family.

John Kerry, on the other hand, has always treated McCain with respect.

McCain has become a pathetic shell of a man.

[wakfs]

20. McCain is nervous about his own re-election

He's running for re-election to the Senate in Arizona, isn't he?
He probably figures he needs to look as evil as possible to garner the GOP vote.

[expatriot]

25. Yes he has an opponent this year...

Check out my sig

[Blue_Roses]

12. fuck John McCain!

what a slime--he deserves to have nasty ads run against him. No more taking up for this prick:mad:

[Isere]

13. Now can we put to rest the McCain myth?

This man has always been a partisan with a mean streak. Remember how he told jokes about Chelsea Clinton?

Let us now and forever tell him to to "shove it!"

[Neshanic]

19. Yes, from an Arizonan, Yes. He is not on our side, and never was.

[MODemocrat]

27. I think McCain voted for Clinton's impeachment

That did it with me. At one time, I thought John McCain had credibility, but since the impeachment, and the nasty remarks he's made about Chelsea, and now denying he's John Kerry's friend. he has completely lost me. :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

[kwolf68]

14. Sorry John

You are a

S-

E-

L-

L-

O-

U-

T-

To think you would roll over with the dogs who butchered your once good name for nothing other than political posturing. You are a whore.

[JETS]

15. McCain should wakeup and smell the Bushit!

If he decides to run in 2008, he's going to get another dose of the Bush Royal Family slime machine. The right-wingers in the Republican Party have already anointed King George II's successor - his name, King Jeb I.

[revree]

18. Don't be fooled - HE IS A REPUBLICAN. A BRAINWASHED

asshole who will do everything he can to keep his power, just like Bush. They are all the same. McCain, Arnold, all of them. The only decent Republicans are those that demand their party change, or defect, like that awesome delegate who left the convention in protest. THE REST ARE SOLDIERS UNDER THE DICTATOR. DEMOCRATS, STOP TRUSTING THEM!!!!!

[tanyev]

21. Maybe he has a split personality disorder

That's the only way he makes sense to me. Start calling him Sybil?

[Puglover]

22. Im so sick and fuckin

tired of hearing about this Repuke whore. Christ if it's possible I think I prefer Bush. At least he doesn't emote McCains measured honesty and fair play WHICH imho is just so much horseshit. I wish this asshole would crawl back to whatever hole he crawled out of and stay there.

[Commendatori]

23. I don't prefer Bush, but outside of that I agree with everything you wrote

If you discount his military service, I have so much contempt for McCain that I can't even see straight when talking about that sanctimonious fuckhead.

[GOPAgainstGW]

24. WHAT A TOTAL SCUMBAG!!! - HAVE FUN WHEN KERRY GETS ELECTED McCAIN!!!

[dennis4868]

26. And to think.....

that Kerry was out in front defending McCain when Shrub attacked McCain in 2000.....WHAT A SELFISH LITTLE BASTARD THIS MAN IS.....GO F YOURSELF!

[ItsMyParty]

28. I'm beginning to wonder if the charges leveled against McCain

by Bush in 2000 have an element of truth to them. The guy is a snake. And we made a STUPID mistake fawning all over him a few months ago and giving him a status he actually didn't have. Remember the GOP already were hating him and we gave him mouth-to-mouth. Had we not made him some sacred cow, he wouldn't be speaking at the convention nor running around playing "I love Georgie" with Bush. That's why I cringe when Kerry also throws around names of other GOPers for things like Sec. of Defense, etc. John, if we wanted a fucking Republican administration we would vote for Bush. Lose the "let's love a republican" mentality because they would be working behind your back to sink you as president and promote their party.

[Ganja Ninja]

29. The only way McCain could possibly get into the White House is ...

the same route Jerry Ford took. First he would have to replace Cheney and then Bush. He stands no chance of ever getting to the top of a GOP ticket let alone being elected.

[Kimber Scott]

30. What a way to treat a "friend."

It's kind of hard to play both ends against the middle and come out smelling like a rose. I think he's stepped in it this time. The shit, I mean. He would have been much better off to be loyal to his "friend," but stress their ideological differences. I hate watching people get stabbed in the back.

[Tomee450]

33. I agree

"What a way to treat a "friend.""

I feel bad for John Kerry. He must feel so disappointed. First Bob Dole and now John McCain.

[Tomee450]

31. I am not at all surprised.

I could never understand the fascination with McCain. He has never been anything other than a very conservative Republican.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

32. Kerry needs to tell McCain to Cheney himself and put those....

ads back on the air!

[tabasco]

34. I'm disgusted with McCain's utter lack of moral courage or ethics

He and those like him are the enemy. Those who love money and power more than their country. I am an Army vet and I find McCain despicable.