I’ll be damned. Does this explain every single thing about McCain and the media, or what?

Max Bergmann had the excellent insight that perhaps the key to understanding John McCain’s hysteria-based foreign policy is that it reflects the mindset of a television pundit. And this, after all, is really what McCain has been. He’s not interested in the nitty-gritty of domestic policy that Senators actually have influence over. And he’s hasn’t been serving in the executive branch, where the national security policies that are his passion actually get made. Instead, he spends a ton of time going on television and talking.

Why do the media idiots love him? Because he’s one of them.
Why do they give him a pass on his totally fraudulent references to elitism? Because they do that shit all the time.
Why do they love his insanity-based foreign policy? Because he says all the absurd, superficially strong-sounding stuff that makes good TV.
They love him like Chris Matthews loved Tim Russert. They love him like David Brooks loves Tom Friedman loves Richard Cohen loves Fred Hiatt. They love him like the Slate editorial board loves any idiot with a contrary position. They would go to bat for him because it’s tribal, because they get him, on a fundamental level. He’s good TV people. He’s one of them.

That’s why he gets a pass on everything; instead of looking at the facts, the media bigs look within themselves, pondering, introspectively, would I do such a terrible thing? Would I be such a terrible person? No way! So John McCain wouldn’t, either. I know him.