Needlessly nasty with some tortured sentences that required careful reading, this post still presents an essentially accurate history of John McCain's presidential path. At the risk of being termed paranoid, I'm going to disagree with one of the article's central points too. I don't believe McCain is the "GOP machine's last, desperate chance" at anything. I think he's the sacrificial goat in an election they knew they were going to lose. We'll see the real Great White Hope for 2012.

The author "billmon" could use a course in punctuation, but this weakness is more than offset by his interesting analysis of McCain's character. Though always eschewing emotionally bland yet descriptively accurate adjectives in favor of derogatory ones, "billmon" creates a biased and intelligent chronicle of McCain's career as a politician who will do and say "just about anything to win."

I used to read Billmon when he blogged at the Whiskey Bar. He's a sharp writer, who doesn't hide his political bias. This McCain narrative is just that, a narrative. A McCain support could probably synthesize an opposing narrative with some of the same 'facts'. Nevertheless, it's a well written opinion piece.