Worse... I've watched him. That green screen speech is etched into my retinas and is still ringing in my ears.

Well, you have heard him speak haven't you?

<sniff>

Oh well. Live by your base, die by your base I guess.

So I guess we're now supposed to vote for McCain because we feel sorry for him. Poor dude. He can't even get 10,000 people to show up to listen to him speak.

"McCain: vote for me out of pity" is going to work really, really well.

“love fest of reporters for Obama”

We have gone through this before. You have blinders on when you can’t see that Matthews funny tingly feeling going up his leg and the way most of the MSM have fall over themselves praising the DNC convention aren’t examples of the MSM love affair with Obama.

Okay big boy, where's the equivalent love fest of reporters for Obama? You did know that all those dudes and dudettes were reporters, right?

In any event, even James doesn't argue that McCain doesn't have a cozy relationship - in fact, he argues just the opposite.

His answer regarding the situation in Iraq was the following hair raiser: "Iraq is a peaceful and stable country now."

Having listened to it, it's even more disturbing to know that the press is only now beginning to discuss McCain's problematic behavior.

This is not the same John McCain, and you are right- they should just let him be himself.

Who are "they"? Why do you assume your circa-2000 impressions are correct and that the 2008 McCain is some aberration? Maybe it's the reverse?

In years past he hasn't had to withstand the scrutiny afforded to a nominee. This year he has and he simply can't handle it.

If this lightweight can't put his "true" personality out there due to his handlers or answer a simple softball question, how can we expect this guy to deal with the terrorists?

Although McCain is old as the hills, he simply doesn't have the intelligence, judgment, or temperament to be president. He is not ready.

If we elect this guy, we are going to have another insecure, unprepared, ideologue in the White House.

Oddly enough, he is really old.

Rove successfully defeated John McCain in the 2000 primaries and helped George W. Bush win the maximum number of presidential terms to which he was constitutionally eligible. So, it's reasonable that McCain would take seriously his advice and that of his senior associates.

But James there's something, and I mean this sincerely, something very sad about the turn John McCain has taken. He was savaged in the most despicable and wounding ways by that Rovian gang in 2000. Think of what they did to him in North Carolina. Think of his adopted daughter. And now for him to enlist those same people to do to Obama what they did to him is depressing. He'll lose friends of lifetime because of this. Maybe his testiness and grumpiness is arising out of a bad conscience.

Now granted, I am fully aware that I am frothing mad at the GOP and that anger colors my perception of everything, but there have just been numerous times throughout this campaign so far where I have simply not recognized John McCain. I was never a McCainiac, but I did have a generally favorable impression about the guy. Now, I look at him, and I wonder who the hell he is.

I simply can not attribute that all to my changes in perceptions regarding the GOP. This is not the same John McCain, and you are right- they should just let him be himself.

But weren't they all written by Mark Salter?

No need for projection, dude. You can just watch the whole thing on YouTube, captured by McCain's daughter.