Operation: Double Dubya

Stories about John McCain courting the religious right and the dwindling ranks of Bush fanatics have become more and more common in blogs and progressive journals in the last few months. The latest is also one of the most creepy, and there's a new twist.

As I wrote recently, McCain just hired a Bush campaign worker with loads o' ties to DeLay and Rove. In fact, McCain's new pal Terry Nelson is named in DeLay's indictment as one of the participants in a money-laundering scheme.

McCain was on a call-in show and had the misfortune of dealing with an informed caller:

McCAIN: None of those charges are true.

CALLER: You don't believe what was actually written in the indictment from Texas?

McCAIN: No.

Given that the caller's statements were 100% factual, the question I most associate with Bush's White House is now squarely on McCain's shoulders: lying, or just incompetent?

Disturbing bonus nugget: I can't even recall where I read it, but the idea was that Lieberman was angling for the second spot on McCain's presidential bid. That would explain two things-- why he's so eager to trash his own party on Fox News (i.e., courting the opposition's base), and why he's so clearly outraged at facing a Democratic challenger in this year's Senate race.