By Patrick Appel
Mark Murray notes that McCain could earn some political points by coming down hard on Ted Stevens, a pork-barrel Senator McCain has clashed with in the past:
Stevens represents everything McCain's been running against inside the GOP for a decade. He ought to embrace his downfall before the GOP's tarnished brand stains him with this.
The dilemma:
...given that the knock on McCain in GOP circles is that he's too willing to throw the party under the bus to further his own ambition, isn't there some risk for McCain in such a move? There's already too much background-sniping in the GOP and conservative ranks for the McCain campaign's taste. If McCain went hard after Stevens, and the congressional GOP more broadly, wouldn't that provoke a whole new round of whispers about McCain's self-righteousness and opportunism?
Nothing but silence from McCain so far.