So Many Republican Hypocrites, So Little Time

September 26, 2008 | SEND TO A FRIEND | GET EARLY NOTICE OF THE HOTW

John McCain

Welcome back to the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Hypocrites can generally be spotted when they have to lie. You see their two faces when they are saying one thing out of one side of their mouth and another out of the other.

That kind of hypocrisy seems to be what stuck in the craw of David Letterman last night, when his old friend John McCain abruptly cancelled an appearance on the "Late Show With David Letterman." Letterman said McCain told him he was dropping everything (including suspending his campaign) to get to Washington and grapple with the economic meltdown.

As Letterman tells it:

It really is starting to smell now because he says to me on the phone, I took a phone call from John McCain... A lot of senators don't call me and so I felt like, 'OK, as part of the national good, I understand,' and I said, 'Good luck. Thank you for being attentive to the cause.

He said, 'Maybe next time I'll come in, I'll bring Sarah Palin.'

I said, 'Fine. Whatever you need to do, that's just fine.'

He said, 'Yeah, we're going to go save the country.'

And then you got... It's like we caught him getting a manicure or something.

John McCain has had a long run of goodwill from media types, but mainstream news folks and late night jokesters alike seem to be finally at the end of their ropes with John McCain. The Baltimore Sun today noted that Couric and her team actually pressed McCain and came through with some very good journalism at his expense:

Here's Couric pressing McCain on Palin's talk of America being on the road to another Great Depression:

Couric: "But isn't much of this, Senator McCain, about consumer confidence?"

McCain: "Sure."

Couric: "And using rhetoric like the Great Depression, is that the kind of language Americans need to hear right now?"

McCain: "Well, listen, I've heard language from respected people who are staring at the abyss. I've, I've heard all kinds of, of things from people. I don't think we need to scare people. …"

But hypocrisy and lies and dissing them?

McCain's in trouble now. He had hoped to use Couric by appearing; and he hoped to use Letterman by not appearing. He tried to work them both to make him look serious and good and essential to solving our country's most urgent problem.

But, alas, John McCain was a two-faced hypocrite. He said he was rushing off to save the country. Everybody can see, though, that he was trying to save his political ass, not his country. And he wasn't even in that much of a rush.

The ploy backfired. And for that, John McCain is this week's BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Remember our motto: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.

Catch up with you soon.