And that one reason is that Media Man’s love of St. McCain knows no bounds.

Rarely do I give a hat tip to Digby, since she’s a genius in her own right and doesn’t need tips, but Steve Benen of the never-shrill Carpetbagger Report has this right. Read it. It’s embarrassing in the extreme, the way the press has anointed Mr. Maverick Straight Talk of the Lobbyist Express as the one person in national politics willing to deviate from prostitution. And I won’t count Obama in the pure club, either, since I largely agree with this. Where I disagree, strongly, is that Obama has made it very clear he understands that change comes from the ground up. That’s a start, and Arthur should understand that, even if I agree that it isn’t the finish.

What people have to understand, and clearly don’t, is that to do any good as a national leader you have to say some things you might not believe in your heart of hearts to be true, because if you don’t get elected you can’t do jack-squat. Obama threw Wright under the bus to get elected, and I’ll bet both of them will consider it a good deed should Obama win the election, and get 1/4 of what he’d like to get done accomplished.

Bill Clinton sacrificed his sexual mores on the alter of doing this country a favor, and personally I think he was successful. Did he move the proverbial progressive ball as forward as I would’ve liked? No, he didn’t. But our Constitution was not built for radical change. And our years under his watch were almost indisputably OK, at worst, in terms of peace and prosperity. And his sex life had nothing to do with anything except infotainment.

IMHO, everyone needs to chill out a little bit, give up on the Obama-as-Messiah theme (Yo! Arthur! Has Obama ever suggested he was a Messiah? I can’t remember him doing so; feel free to correct me), and give up on the gender-based tribal politics of Taylor Marsh or Jeralyn Merritt, and try to find out a way to move this country forward, even if only incrementally.

(OOPS! Two reasons: The other being the idea that Hillary supporters will either sit it out in Nov. or vote for St. McCain. My apologies.)

And McCain ain’t it. The only thing more stupid than the Obama as Messiah complex is thinking he’d be worse than McCain.

That would be virtually impossible.

Update: I couldn’t argue my way out of a paper bag where Arthur, Steve, Jeralyn, or Taylor are concerned. At least not in writing. But I also wouldn’t be the first person who observed that genius, as commonly defined, didn’t include the occasional inability to tie one’s shoes. Just sayin’.

Update: OOPS again! Race. I’m just taking that one for granted now, so I skipped it.