“John McCain became a P.O.W. this week, at the hands of his own Party. It was Sarah Palin’s Convention, not McCain’s. His speech last night was so out of sync with the vituperative tone and stale, hard-right cultural populism of the Convention’s other headliners—above all, Palin—that he sounded less like a Presidential nominee than one of those token speakers given a spot on the program just to prove that the Party welcomes diversity. ”

That’s from George Packer’s blog, available online only at the New Yorker.

Using the P.O.W. myth against McCain has never been done as effectively, I believe, as Packer does in this short piece. He continues:

This time, though, McCain is collaborating with his captors. By picking Palin he knowingly guided his campaign well over hostile territory and then aimed its nose straight down. Once taken hostage, he refused to speak his captors’ propaganda, but he allowed everyone else to shout it to the rafters.

As I was watching McCain give his speech, I mostly kept thinking to myself “I can’t stand the rest of these Republicans, but I have a soft spot for McCain. They’ve managed to nominate the only candidate who’s life history and personal story has a conceivable chance of standing up against Barack Obama’s.” Yet, I couldn’t help thinking, at the same time: He’s the nominee now. He’s the head of his party. He should be able to dictate the tone of the debate, but he’s been completely unable to do that.

No one would hold against him the fact that he broke, as he said last night, under North Vietnamese torture. His capitulation to the latest group of hard-liners to take him prisoner is a lot harder to justify.

I’ll always have a soft spot for John McCain. I think he’s a guy who really has tried to do the “right” thing over the long course of his career. It’s unfortunate that the end point of that career has him a prisoner of the hard-right Republican base, instead of finally being able to rise above it.