Fawning Over John McCain

For the details on the media's John McCain wet dreams, there's no one like the incomparable Daily Howler, who neatly dissects Michael Kinsley's column on McCain in today's Washington Post in which he writes of his rapture at McCain's recent speeches:

They are marvelous: witty, self-mocking, above all interesting. When McCain climbs onto an old warhorse like, say, filial obligation, you really do not know where he might take it. It would be wonderful to have a president whose speeches weren't a duty to listen to.

Kinsley's column points out that many McCainiacs seem to overlook the great man's actual positions on the issues:

With McCain, something more magical is going on. He says plainly that he is for the war, or against abortion choice, and people hear the opposite. It's a gift, I guess.

A gift? Perhaps, a gift from the legions of smitten journalists like Kinsley himself, as the Daily Howler describes in excruciating detail:

Were McCain’s speeches “marvelous: witty, self-mocking, above all interesting?” That, of course, is a matter of judgment. (For ourselves, we’d judge somewhat differently.) ... McCain’s performance was also “brilliant”—and, of course, it showed his “courage!” Remember: Every gesture, every word, must, by law, display McCain’s courage. There’s simply nothing the great man can do that the Kinsleys can’t find ways to fawn to.