The Left Anchor

Jonathan Chait takes to the pages of The New Republic to defend St. John McCain against the slings and arrows of outrageous reality:

[Following the 2000 primaries], McCain established himself as perhaps the
country’s foremost progressive champion. He was an opponent, on moral
and fiscal grounds, of tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the rich.
He was also a fierce opponent of the extreme elements of the religious
right. He was a proponent of global-warming legislation, the Law of the
Sea Treaty, a moderate immigration bill, expanded public financing of
elections, a tobacco tax, and many other liberal reforms.  Today, he is none of these things.

<snip>

Yet, somehow, I still feel some pangs of affinity for the old codger.

The rest of the piece will continue in the form of a series of negative assertions about McCain followed by a "yet" or a "but" meant to somehow console us that McCain isn’t really so bad after all.

As for his substantive views, they do (now) closely resemble Bush’s.
Yet the upside to a candidate who changes his philosophical orientation
as often as McCain is that he could always switch back.

<snip>

Liberals tend to view the press’s love affair with McCain as a wildly
unfair act of bias. They have a point. On the other hand, they should
take some heart in the fact that McCain obviously cherishes the
approval of the mainstream (and even liberal) media.

<snip>

Does McCain spin and dissemble? Of course. But the current administration’s practices go far beyond mere spin.

<snip>

The idea that McCain could establish a reputation as a maverick by
standing up to his party on numerous issues, win back his party’s
support by abandoning nearly all his heterodoxies, then prevail by
portraying himself as an unwavering man of principle is nauseating. Yet
somehow the idea of a McCain presidency itself doesn’t terrify me.

The way he writes, Chait sounds like someone defending the actions of an abusive spouse (Yes, he hit me, but I made him do it), or better yet, a drug addict.  Wait!  That’s it exactly!  Jonathan Chait is an enabler!  And here’s the kicker:

The Bush presidency is like being married to a sociopath. A McCain
presidency would be more like being married to a drug addict–however
badly he behaves, he could always sober up.

Jonathan Chait is literally an enabler!  By his own admission!  He actually compares McCain to a drug addict, and then in true enabler fashion suggest that no matter how badly McCain behaves, he could always sober up.

Chait, anyone can tell you that the only way to help an addict is to let them hit rock bottom.  McCain will not sober up as long as the media continues to cover up his glaring deficiencies, and softening their few criticisms the way you did in this piece.  Let’s get the yets and buts out of the coverage of John McCain.  Then we’d be a lot closer to something resembling the truth.