Andrew Sullivan, Conservative -McCain's Integrity

Conservative commentator and author of The Conservative Soul has a scathing commentary out today regarding John McCain, and the nature of his character. It is blunt and none too kind:

For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?

So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil.

Sullivan goes on to list the many instances when John McCain could have picked the right path and instead did not. On Bush, or torture, on running an honest and forthright campaign, John McCain has fallen short of his promise:

The enormity of this moral betrayal, this betrayal of his country's honor, has yet to sink in. But for my part, it now makes much more sense. He is not the man I thought he was.

He says that McCain has, "run a series of grotesque, trivial and absurd MTV-style attacks on Obama's virtues and implied disgusting things about his opponent's patriotism." And then when confronted with his pending loss of the election he chose to, " reignite the culture war as a last stand against Obama."

Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.

Andrew Sullivan, an old-school fiscal conservative leaves the best for last, and applies his sharpest point to McCain:

McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved it.

You can read the entire Commentary by Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic. com here.