Pun Salad

Hillary maintains a slim lead in the only poll that matters:

The big upward swing in McCain's hits may have something to do with what blogger John Hawkins calls his propensity for "lying through his teeth on one of the most crucial election issues and then changing his position the first time he believes he can get away with it."

The issue, in case you haven't heard, is so-called "comprehensive immigration reform," a hot-button issue for Hawkins and a lot of other conservative bloggers. You'll want to read Hawkins' full post (and this followup) for the full dose of outrage. But the bottom line is:

Put very simply: John McCain is a liar. He's a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration. Quite frankly, this is little different from George Bush, Sr. breaking his "Read my lips, no new taxes pledge," except that Bush's father was at least smart enough to wait until he got elected before letting all of his supporters know that he was lying to them.

Jim Geraghty was concerned enough to get the word from the McCain campaign.

Team McCain tells me the senator's comments were poorly worded. There's been no discussion within the campaign of altering their stance on illegal immigration, and as far as everyone on the campaign is concerned, the policy is still, 'secure the border first.'

My view: Hawkins has it essentially right. McCain altered his public pronouncements on immigration just enough to gull GOP primary voters. But he's simply too self-righteous to whole-heartedly adopt a policy at odds with his pro-comprehensive history. His "poorly worded" comments were just the result of a slipping mask.

Which is why Senator McCain gets sole posession of this week's phony posting.