John LeBoutillier
Friday April 20, 2001

This fellow thirsts for the limelight. He basks in the glow of all the favorable media coverage he has received over the past four or five years.

Rarely has the left-leaning national news media been more "in love" with one man – and certainly never before with a Republican.

Indeed, John McCain, despite winning a Senate battle on his campaign finance reform bill, is increasingly frustrated with the fact that it is George Bush who sets the political agenda – not John McCain.

Those who know McCain can’t stand him. He’s particularly nasty and cold. He is an arrogant, cocky little man with a gigantic chip on his shoulder and an inflated sense of himself. Little wonder that almost every GOP senator last year – instead of endorsing their fellow "Senate Club member" – supported Bush! If you have ever been on the receiving end of a McCain stare or tirade, you would never forget it.

Yet for some reason the national news media fell in love with McCain. Perhaps it was because he made it his trademark to be a Republican who attacked his fellow Republicans – thus sparing the media from having to do it.

Also, let's face something: There is and always has been a unique appeal to returned war heroes and especially POWs. Their captivity serves to "cleanse" them – and when they return there is a "resurrection" element.

McCain's political success is almost entirely due to his status as a returned POW – and from a war that seemed to provide few heroes in the eyes of the anti-war media. Of course this is utter nonsense. The media are so biased that they never wanted to see the wonderful soldiers who sacrificed so much in Vietnam.

This media contingent – now in charge of the Big Three TV networks – are riddled with personal guilt over their own cowardly conduct in the war. And so, to assuage that guilt, they have all glommed onto McCain as their savior.

It is funny to see. McCain has been a traditional fiscal and social conservative – and from one of our nation’s most conservative states. Normally the news media would vilify such a candidate. But McCain's courting of the inside-the-beltway media has been nothing short of breathtaking.

And it is not over!

No, the latest plot is the most ambitious yet: Forces inside the media – combined with still-bitter McCain political operatives – are actively considering a 2004 presidential run – as an Independent or part of a Democratic/Independent coalition!

Polling has shown McCain to be very popular among Democrats and Independents – and despised among rank-and-file Republicans.

Plus the McCain campaign staff has been kept intact and funded through McCain's new PAC.

Already there have been the first signs of columnists and writers speculating about the 'weak' 2004 Democratic field.

They are merely laying the groundwork for yet another run by their hero.

How disgusting!

Since when are the national media supposed to use their positions to be political advocates for individual candidates?

But the fact is that the better G.W. Bush does – and the worse the Democratic opposition does in reaction to him – the media are going to create a scenario where McCain is, once again, their savior.

Buckle your seatbelts and prepare for Bush-McCain Round II.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Daily Political Diary