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• Monday, May 28, 2007 08:03 AM

  John McCain has just told us he's finished

  The reaction of John McCain to the speech in Chicago by Obama was the most significant development of this dust-up. It is, even at this late stage, both stupefying but understandable that Romney and McCain would paint 2 Democratic candidates as unpatriotic. It is encouraging to their opposition that Obama can come roaring back.

  But John McCain responded to this speech with a press release of absolute significance. His main thrust was inconsequential, merely further besmirching of Obama's stance and character. But then he added, as a twist of the blade he assumed, a snarky aside correcting a spelling error in the hard copy of Obama's transcribed speech.

  A marvel, isn't it, how lives unfold? With this one little aside, John McCain has signaled to us that he's done. Over.

  Everyone knows that Obama didn't write the damn hard copy and that an insignificant typo is the error of an intern or copyist. To remark upon it would be a sign of pure desperation but to say desperation implies that some hope remains. To make the crack is the sure sign of the depleted bully. And not the playground bully but the back-of-the-class, cowardly kind, the Karl Roves of the world.

  It's the "tell". To resort to this means there's nowhere else to go. Anything else he has to say in now empty air, inconsequential. John McCain is simply a rat in a box, waiting for the sharp stick to descend. And he knows it even if he's not yet aware of it.

  Good-bye, John.

  —Rance Spergl Read Rance Spergl's other letters
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