Summarizing McCain

Hugh has a great post here discussing the albatross that hangs around John McCain's neck. Likely the one that costs him any real shot at the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

It's all about the judges that didn't get confirmed, or for that matter didn't even get a vote. That, barring any surprising incidents over the next 2 years, will wholly define him. Ultimately, whether that's a good or a bad thing for the GOP is debated in the comment thread and makes for interesting reading as well.

Hugh has always been of the mind that the Republican Senate squandered the hard work and effort of the base in '04 when it acquiesced to the Gang of 14 in the Spring of '05. Did that cost us in '06? Certainly some, but it was just one of many things that slowly but surely began to turn the base off and served as the first signal that Republicans had become concerned with something other than acting like conservative Republicans, despite the fact many of us made a point of sending more Republicans to Congress in 2002 and again in '04 for precisely that reason.

I hope the Senator is proud. He appears to be. I only wonder if he truly understands though what a lot of conservatives think it is that he accomplished. Dollars to doughnuts that we have differing views on the subject.

The question is, however, whether in two years time he'll think it still something worth bragging on. My hope is it won't be.