This Daily News article

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This Daily News article on John McCain describes how the Arizona Senator is reverting to his accustomed role as thorn in the side of the Bush administration, taking aim both at the administration’s military strategy in Afghanistan and also their evolving post-9/11 domestic policy.

What’s just as interesting though is what’s implicit in the article: President Bush’s seeming insistence on undermining the potential long-term political benefits of the war on terrorism with unthinking obedience to the DeLay-Armey crew in the House — particularly on stuff like airport security.

No matter what pundits might say, a successful war on terrorism won’t come close to guaranteeing President Bush reelection. But how he uses his political capital could. If Bush sidled a bit toward the middle and got some triangulation points by picking a few fights with the mullahs in the House, he’d have a decent shot at commanding the center of American politics and convincing a decent portion of the electorate that he’s a different kind of Republican.

Lucky for the Dems, he shows no signs of doing that.

More on this to follow.

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