Letter: McCain’s credibility lost with flip-flopping

Tuesday, April 4, 2006 | 7:16 a.m.

The presidential election of 2008 is looming on the horizon with echoes of the last election still haunting our nation: the scurrilous attacks on John Kerry in the Swift Boat ads and repeated contentions that he was a flip-flopper. Now we find that one of the leading potential Republican candidates is proving himself to be far more of a master at the "flip-flop" than they portrayed Kerry.

Sen. John McCain was on Sunday's "Meet the Press." In his appearance with host Tim Russert, he did so many back flips that I finally lost count. Here is a man who I had admired as a war hero, a middle-of-the-road politician who I once considered supporting. But no more. After enduring vicious attacks on both he and his wife by the Bush camp in the 2000 primary for the Republican nomination, he ignores that and now embraces Bush as if he is a kindred spirit and personal friend.

Where he opposed the Bush tax plan in 2001, he now endorses it in spite of the unbelievable increase in the national debt as a result of that tax cut. In 2000 the religious right cut him to shreds, yet he has agreed to give the commencement address at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. After what Falwell said about him, this has to be the ultimate in hypocrisy.

Let us face it. He has proved himself as an opportunist, a man who is two-faced and will do anything to achieve his goals. One should not forget or ignore his key role in the infamous congressional scandal of 1989 referred to as the "Keating Five." Any respect I had for the former Vietnam War hero has long since vanished.

Ray Harbert, Las Vegas