Ruben Navarrette: Shockingly Sycophantic

Whether Navarrette believes his own spiel or not, I think there are a few people out there who actually think like this. And that's the support he's shamelessly trying to rally, pulling a reverse-cynicism complaint out of his bag of tricks.

I think McCain deserves applause for having his priorities straight. For the past several days, the media and members of both parties have been scaring the daylights out of the American people by calling this the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression.

. . . After all the doom and gloom, pundits were then somehow surprised when McCain decided to temporarily suspend his presidential campaign and return to his day job in Congress, where he tried to work out a bailout deal with his colleagues.

. . . McCain showed real leadership this week. And frankly, if we were more accustomed to seeing that sort of thing from our elected officials, we might be less cynical and better able to recognize it on the rare occasions when it surfaces.

. . . The presidential candidates can't run from this issue any more than the rest of the country can. That's why both of them should have cleared their plate and gotten to work on a solution. But only one did.

Spare me. Because we doubt McCain's motive we're cynical? That's an appalling stretch on behalf of a candidate who has milked the public goodwill for every last ounce of stretch left in it. I'm thinking history isn't going to judge McCain kindly, after all this, no matter the outcome. And Navarrette will doubtless find something priggish and glib to say about that, too, in John McCain's defense.