McCain: Don't Criticize Veterans (Except Maybe John Kerry)

Interesting the way John McCain suddenly is scandalized by Mitt Romney's criticism of Bob Dole.

Unless there's more to the story than I've read, Romney didn't mention Bob Dole's war record at all. All he said was that Dole was "probably the last person I would have wanted to have write a letter for me" (this is after Dole wrote a letter to Rush Limbaugh defending McCain against Rush Limbaugh's attacks on McCain). Frankly, if I were a presidential candidate, I wouldn't want Dole writing a letter for me, either: the guy's record in presidential elections is not exactly impressive.

Anyway, McCain's response to Romney, that "this is no way to end up this campaign, by attacking a genuine American war hero" appears to be a nonsequitur. Again, unless there's more to the story, nothing Romney said appears to have even mentioned Bob Dole's war record.

For what it's worth, I remember that in 2004, McCain was less than categorical in his defense of John Kerry against the disgraceful, dishonest smears launched by the Swift Boat liars and amplified by Republicans nationwide.

For what it's worth, Bob Dole didn't just fail to defend Kerry, he defended the Swift Boat liars (the fact that he did so by focusing on their right to say what they believed is another nonsequitur).

This is another one of those examples where McCain shows his true stripes: he's a politician, like the rest of them.

Update: Commenter Adam, below, links to a WaPo article from 2004 and quotes McCain, who said at the time that the Swift Boat liars' ad was "dishonest and dishonorable". This certainly is categorical, and thus more categorical than I recall. I'm grateful to Adam for pointing this out (categorically, I might add!). I'll try to find some time to do some more research on this issue -- when I wrote "I remember that..." I really was going off memory, which, as Adam notes, turns out to have been faulty. My bad, categorically.