The "Old John McCain" Did not Really Exist

Andrew Sullivan agrees, the "old John McCain" is make-believe:

I don't buy this any more. I've come to the sad conclusion that McCain's brand was just that. His real core is about power and ambition, divorced, when necessary, from principle or patriotism. You learn who people really are when they are asked to do the right thing when it might hurt them, not when it helps them anyway. We just learned something that has always been true about McCain. It isn't pretty.