The wheels are falling off...

Karma is really bitch-slapping John McCain these days.

He lost his credibility when he started sucking up to the religious right in an attempt to woo the Republican base.

He alienated that base by pushing an immigration bill that infuriated it. (It shouldn't have, the "amnesty" provisions weren't anything close to what they were being made out as in the right-wing media, but in politics, perception is everything.)

And now he can't raise money and more and more top staffers are leaving his campaign.

And I'm not sure he gets it--he seems to be running as the heir apparent, the man who is entitled to the nomination because it's his turn. And usually, that's how the GOP works. They're the party of hierarchy, and the nomination goes to whoever's next in line.

But not this year. And his efforts to pitch himself as "next in line" seem mostly to involve supporting a disastrous military intervention that nobody but a small segment of the base still supports.

At one time, McCain was a man I could respect. I didn't agree with him on much, but I respected him as a man of conviction.

As it turns out, he's just another grasping politician. And not a particularly competent one.

Sad.