McCain vs. McCain

Commenters to this blog never tire of complaining that the much-reviled MSM does not point out the inconsistencies between John McCain's reformer image and his current campaign tactics. To me, that suggests they are not reading the MSM. In fact, a major storyline of this campaign is the fight between McCain and, well, McCain. I wrote about it last December , in a story for TIME that included this powerful quote from Ken Duberstein, who was White House chief of staff under Ronald Reagan and one of the few GOP establishment figures to support McCain in 2000:

A profile in courage can become a profile in unrestrained ambition. He has to remember who his friends are and not spend his integrity on one-night stands with those who will never fully trust him.

That theme has also become very much a part of the stories about McCain in the major newspapers, including this one and this one, which appeared within a day of each other in the New York Times. But no one has done such a thorough job of pointing out the contradictions as frequent blogosphere target John Solomon, who did a lot of legwork for the story that appears in today's Washington Post.