mushinnoshin

You may or may not have already seen the video of McCain trying to tell his wingnut supporters to chill:

See — I think John McCain is a decent guy. I don’t think he’s especially bright, I think he’s wrong on a laundry list of issues, and I think he lacks the temperament and emotional discipline to be a great leader, or at least to be the leader we need right now. But I do believe that at his core he’s someone who wants to be honest and honorable.

And so I really sorta feel bad for the guy. I mean I think he genuinely did not want his campaign to devolve into the disturbingly negative fear-mongering and race-baiting we’ve seen lately. My gut says that the people running his campaign, creatures of a much lower and more common variety of the species lowlifeus Republicanus, have been hounding him to use these tactics, and he only finally relented when the poll numbers left him with no ammunition with which to argue.

So then when his instinct turns out to have been right — the slime doesn’t work and only succeeds in bringing out the worst of the worst — he has to try to undo the damage, and you can see the shame in his heart in the way his eyes fall sadly to the floor when he says what he has to say.

Also in fairness, before we give him too much credit/blame for fanning the fires of hate — Ana Marie Cox echoed thoughts I’d been having when she appeared on Maddow’s show last night, saying something to the effect that it isn’t so much that he’s brought out the inner pitchfork waver in his average supporter, but rather that the lynch mob racists, freepers, and assorted wingnuts make up the majority of the supporters he has left.