Things are getting ugly in South Carolina. Just heard tonight about the swiftboating of John McCain, by a group calling itself, amusingly, "Swift Boot". Then there was the Christmas card purportedly from Romney, pushing the Mormon religion and making racist remarks.

The McCain connection was sufficient pretext for the subject line, but I'm really curious to try and understand just what you and "plenty of Republicans" despise about the man (and why some Republicans are driven to smear him, in 2000 as well as 2008). I have some problems with his political positions, but I try to devote as much attention to discerning the eternals of character as I do to ephemera of rhetoric, and I get a strong sense of McCain as someone with a fairly strong character, good judgment, willingness to listen and compromise...ohhhhh--is it the compromise part? Is McCain a RINO because he's reasonable?

(Also electable, judging not only by the polls, but also my gut feel that if hell freezes over and the Democrats don't win in November, McCain would be the least disastrous Republican. Remember how I voted for McCain in 2000? Doesn't that just make you crazy to think of Liberals voting for the guy?)