Who says you can't draw blood as a blogger?

John Coyne wrote a review of Game Change, a chronicle of the 2008 presidential campaign, in which he said this: "The F-word was apparently McCain's trademark. And for readers of Game Change, that's how John McCain, who deserves better, will be remembered."

To which, in The American Spectator's blog, Quin Hillyer responds:

"But WHY does John McCain deserve better? Coyne never explains. Nor could he, because McCain does not deserve better. Does anybody doubt that this man of volcanic and inexcusable temper uses the F-word with reckless abandon? Does anybody doubt that this man of deep grudges, reportedly flagrant infidelities, an intense mean streak, and a disdain for the actual substance of most domestic political issues would easily lend himself to caricature precisely because his own manifold flaws make him a walking caricature all on his own?

It was fellow Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, after all, who early in 2008 -- not somewhere back in distant memory, but in the presidential election year itself -- told The Boston Globe that 'The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.' Cochran was talking about the same McCain who parachuted in to immigration-bill negotiations at the last minute and started yelling at Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, with frequent F-bombs, that he, McCain, knew more about the issue than anybody there, even though he had been gone from the negotiations for six weeks.

Why does John McCain deserve better? Certainly not for flyng off the handle like a lunatic on crystal meth when the financial crisis hit in September of 2008. He soon took to spluttering that it was all the fault of SEC Chairman Chris Cox, a solid conservative and all-around good guy who actually had nothing whatsoever to do with the crisis -- no oversight over the things that went bad, etc. (Actually, McCain's criticism was even more ludicrous than most: The one and only thing that he specifically blamed Cox for NOT doing was something Cox actually had already done.)

McCain certainly dos not deserve better for providing crucial support to His sidekick Lindsey Graham's personal and petty vendetta against Pentagon legal counsel William J. Haynes, when Haynes was up for a well-deserved judgeship -- when Graham and McCain in effect accused Haynes of giving approval for torture, when he had done nothing of the sort.

McCain deserves no credit for running a terrible campaign that saddled us with Barack Obama as president..."

All I can say is, "uff da."