Posted by Jed Lewison on Sun Sep 7, 2008 at 3:05 PM Pacific

John McCain's Revisionist Campaign History

Mickey Kaus catches John McCain lying about about the true reasons for his campaign's collapse in the summer of 2007: immigration.

Here's McCain in December 2007 claiming to Ryan Lizza that the true cause of his political troubles was his weak fundraising:

Over lunch in Arlington, McCain had given the stock explanation for what caused last summer's difficulties. "The problem, which was my problem, was that our fiscal expectations weren't met by reality," he said--in other words, he couldn't raise enough money.

Except that wasn't the true cause of his troubles. The next day he admitted that he had lied. The real problem was his position on immigration reform.

But the next day, as I travelled with McCain around South Carolina, he told me that his campaign's brush with death had less to do with fund-raising than with his role in championing the ambitious immigration-reform bill, supported by the White House, that died in Congress this year. "It wasn't the budgetary problems. That was an inside-the-Beltway thing," he said, referring to press coverage of his campaign's setbacks. ... "It was immigration" that hurt his campaign, he said when he continued, after a series of apologies on both sides. "I understand that. I was told by one of the pollsters, 'We see real bleeding.' "

So John McCain flip-flopped and shifted his message to focus on his support for the surge in Iraq.

Yet now John McCain says it's the surge that caused his campaign to collapse.

I fought for the right strategy and more troops in Iraq, when it wasn't a popular thing to do. And when the pundits said my campaign was finished, I said I'd rather lose an election than see my country lose a war.

Actually, it's his militaristic flag waving that put his campaign back on track. But what does the truth matter to a guy like John McCain?

He lies, and he just doesn't care. Because in his eyes, it's his country that owes him, not the other way around. To him, it's John McCain first.