Topic: Newsmax
The ConWeb is getting in a last bit of John McCain-bashing before Super Tuesday:
-- Ronald Kessler, apparently bitter that his favorite candidate, Mitt Romney, is going down in flames, lashes out in a Feb. 3 Newsmax column. Kessler uses David Keene of the American Conservative Union to complain that "John McCain is largely a creation of the media," then adds: "In contrast to the glowing coverage of McCain and his Straight Talk Express, the media have largely ignored a telling clue to Romney’s character. As first fully reported by Newsmax, when told in July 1996 that the 14-year-old daughter of one of his partners at Bain Capital had been missing in New York for three days, Romney closed down the firm. He asked its 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to try to find her." Kessler desperately adds: " While Romney changed some of his positions while he was Massachusetts governor or later, he has changed his position on fewer issues than did McCain."
-- In a Feb. 4 column, Jack Wheeler calls McCain "psychologically unstable" and a "nutcase wack job," then -- echoing the "Manchurian candidate" smear -- uses anonymous sources to claim that McCain "collaborat[ed] with his Communist captors" while a POW in the Vietnam War. (UPDATE: We've previously noted that WND has engaged in some ethical-boundary-blurring advertising-disguised-as-news on Wheeler's behalf.)
-- The headline of a Feb. 4 CNSNews.com column by Chuck Muth sums up the general conservative dilemma: "Slit a Vein or Vote for McCain?" Muth writes of the idea that Newt Gingrich or South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford would ride in as a "dark-horse savior" at a brokered convention: "Do it! Do it! Do it!"
-- Mark Finkelstein touches on a host of conervative bogeymen in a Feb. 2 NewsBusters post, noting that "the liberal [Los Angeles Times] likes McCain because he's weak on border fences and strong on global warming."
