Arizona's King Lear

Interesting parallel:

Watching the mass defections from the McCain camp, I couldn’t help but think of King Lear. As the play (Shakespeare’s darkest) progresses, Lear consistently loses half of his army (or “train”) -- it dwindles from 100 to 50 to 25 on down to nothing. The loss mirrors his own descent from powerful king to senility and death.

...Here’s a man whose daughter – daughter – was viciously slandered by the GOP political machine in South Carolina, which included the social conservative hierarchy. Here’s a man who endured unspeakable torture. Here’s a man who, for better or worse, came to prominence through high-profile dissents from party orthodoxy. And in the past three years, he’s abandoned it all.

...But fast forward a few years, and we see McCain kissing up to the very people who slandered his daughter. He speaks at their commencements. He publicly hugs the man whose campaign personally and viciously attacked him and his family. It’s utter humiliation.

Same deal with torture. It's not possible for me to know what McCain endured in Vietnam, and I won't pretend to. I’ll only guess that it left a tremendous impact on him, and that he must privately detests torture. Fast forward to 2006 though and we see him betray that conviction for political expediency. Despite some initial high-profile dissent, McCain ultimately supported what everyone knew was an official sanction of state torture. Because the NRO/Reynolds/Falwell wing of the party is what it is, he decided he had to support torture in order to be president. And on this, he was right.

In short, you have a man forced to swallow his pride, to repress deeply-felt emotions, and to essentially repudiate his entire being to be President.

...That’s what makes running for president such a high-stakes gamble. To gain it all, you risk it all. McCain’s soul-selling will be remembered (forever) in one of two very different ways. On the one hand, it could be remembered as the shrewd political calculation that won him the nomination and then the presidency. More likely, it will be remembered as pathetic hypocrisy that will accompany his permanent, eternal humiliation. He will soon go from media darling to “pathetic loser.” Dukakis: Welcome to the club.

...But that’s the cost. Running for president isn’t for the weak at heart. It’s a high-stakes bet. For a chance at political greatness and immortality, you risk a great deal. McCain did just that, but it looks like he lost.