Krugman hammers on the phoniest Senator on the hill (via Americablog) :

So here’s what you need to know about John McCain.

He isn’t a straight talker. His flip-flopping on tax cuts, his call to send troops we don’t have to Iraq and his endorsement of the South Dakota anti-abortion legislation even while claiming that he would find a way around that legislation’s central provision show that he’s a politician as slippery and evasive as, well, George W. Bush.

He isn’t a moderate. Mr. McCain’s policy positions and Senate votes don’t just place him at the right end of America’s political spectrum; they place him in the right wing of the Republican Party.

And he isn’t a maverick, at least not when it counts. When the cameras are rolling, Mr. McCain can sometimes be seen striking a brave pose of opposition to the White House. But when it matters, when the Bush administration’s ability to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line.

To put things into numbers, here’s something I posted to compare McCain to his Senate peers two years ago :

Just for kicks, I’ve looked up the legislative scorecard numbers of five of the senate presidential candidates for the ACLU, NAACP, AFL-CIO, the Human Rights Campaign, the League of Conservation Voters, and the American Association of University Women. And, just for the hell of it, I’ve included the Christian Coalition and American Conservative Union and also included a few prominent Congressional conservatives as well. For the most part these ratings are of the 107th Congress or the legislative sessions of 2001 or 2002. For those who want some more information, the group names in the table below link to the actual reports.

Or to put things another way, McCain is just the Lieberman of the GOP. His voting record is mostly partisan, but he’s earned his reputation by pretending to be above partisan politics. We all know that’s bullshit, but it should be repeated again and again every time the “straight talk express” opens his mouth. It’s all an act and if you believe it, you’re a fool.

And speaking of Lieberman, I should point out that McCain’s bipartisan act wouldn’t work if he didn’t have a reliable wingman. Or to put things in Top Gun terms, if McCain is a “Maverick”, then Lieberman is a “Goose”. If you don’t want this Goose to see the end of the movie either, do what you can to support Ned Lamont.