Topic: Newsmax
We've noted Ronald Kessler's journey from McCain-basher to McCain fluffer. He has made that journey complete by flip-flopping on his previous criticism of John McCain's temper.
In January, Kessler wrote of "McCain’s monumental character flaws," chief among them being "his outbursts of temper." Kessler wrote of the following incident:
Defending his bill to give amnesty to illegal aliens, McCain unleashed a tirade on Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who had voiced concerns about the number of judicial appeals illegal immigrants could file under the proposed legislation.
“F*** you!” McCain said to his fellow senator. “I know more about this than anybody else in the room!” McCain shouted.
Kessler added: "Over and over, voters have ignored warning signs of poor character and have overlooked track records, only to regret it once a president enters the White House and becomes corrupted by the power of the office."
Fast-forward to the May issue of Newsmax magazine and its cover story on McCain by Kessler (not available online). No dire warnings about McCain's temper here -- in fact, Kessler now believes his temper is an asset to the presidency.
Indeed, Kessler repeats the above Cornyn anecdote, then adds things he didn't write in January to give it a completely opposite spin:
McCain's swagger didn't irk Cornyn enough for him to withhold support for his candidacy. When Cornyn endorsed McCain's presidential bid in February, he said "He is clearly the man for the job."
[...]
McCain has explained his outbursrts by saying, "I have always had this acute sense of right and wrong. All my life I have been offended by hyprocisy."
That scrappy approach resembles the way he boxed while at the Naval Academy.
That's right -- what was once a "signs of poor character" is now a "scrappy approach."
The rest of the article is largely sycophantic, suggesting there are "two John McCains" -- the war hero and the "unpredictable maverick" with the "volatile temper -- and unsurprisingly concluding that "the two sides of John McCain may turn out to be a winning combination."
Congratulations, Mr. Kessler! You've completely contradicted yourself over a span of just a few months, demonstrating once and for all that you have no journalistic principles worth mentioning -- just a desire to be on the side of whoever's the winning Republican -- and therefore cannot be trusted as a journalist.
The big question now, of course, is whether Kessler will fawn over Cindy McCain as creepily as he did over Mitt Romney's wife.
