csammisrun

Eight years ago John McCain was a pretty decent politician guy. I wouldn’t have voted for him (I didn’t vote in the 2000 primaries anyway, being 17 at the time) but he had a relatively sane head on his shoulders – he certainly wasn’t a democrat, but he was moderate. Chronicled here are a series of interviews Sen. McCain did on the Daily Show that showcase an eight year long buy-in into the sort of right-wing nuts that ridiculed him in his 2000 run at the GOP primaries.

• July 26, 2001: McCain has the NRA pissed at him for being involved in a bill to require background checks at gun shows. A decent sense of humor all around. “Maverick” was not a word that makes me grit my teeth.
• March 19, 2002: Gunning for campaign finance reform, seems very comfortable with himself, again with the sense of humor.
• May 10, 2004: McCain talks about his direct questioning of Rumsfeld about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. He was one of the first Republicans to ask directly about the level of awareness that the Bush administration had on the subject.
• November 8, 2005: Talking about a war bill provision that McCain introduced to outlaw (for reals this time) physical torture of enemy combatants.
• April 4, 2006: Here’s where things start to get a bit upsetting for the man. He’s starting to pander to the far right base by paling around with Jerry Falwell – and he admits that he’s doing it.
• April 24, 2007 (part two): Looking very prickly and uncomfortable. McCain’s presidential campaign is going now and he’s talking about deadlines as “surrender” in Iraq, IED jokes, the whole deal. Sounds a lot like the terrorist fear-mongering we’ve been hearing nonstop out of the McCain/Palin campaign recently.

Also it’s pretty weird to look back four years and hear “Mission Accomplished lol” when that joke was only a year old :/

Thanks to Davish Krail on Something Awful for suggesting the method of this highly informal study.