So John McCain really cares about judges, he tells us, yet he came very very close to leaving the GOP in 2001 before Sen. Jeffords did, a move that would have (and did, when Jeffords did it) given the Dems control of the Judiciary Committee. In the story, he denies it, even though numerous other witnesses say it is true and even though Daschle’s meeting logs seem to confirm it. By now, McCain’s honesty in general has been brought very much in question, so I actually find myself, based on the weight of the evidence, believing Daschle and company rather than McCain. In other words, again, in all likelihood, McCain lied. And not about a minor matter, but about something absolutely crucial to conservative governance, something on which McCain’s actual near-actions would have hobbled conservatives. He lost the race to Bush in 2000, so like the sore loser at the neighborhood playground, he almost took his ball and went home. It appears that the main thing that stopped him was the Jeffords did it first.