According to The Caucus, it happened on the trail in South Carolina:
A surprise guest of sorts came via a video, filed for the occasion by the former President Bush, who spoke in support of Mr. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina and supporter of Mr. McCain. “I’m proud to be with you at the no surrender rally,” the elder Mr. Bush said. [...]
Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, said tonight that the elder Mr. Bush’s video should not be taken as an endorsement. When he was asked if why it was not an endorsement, he said: “I think this was just a nice thing by a very patriotic American who was asked to make a video and said yes. The optics are wonderful for John McCain, but it wasn’t meant for political purposes.”
The easy joke is that this should be the final nail in the coffin for the relationship between McCain and Dubya, but it could actually go a little beyond that. What we often forget is that the current president’s Oedipal rage has been a useful dynamic for a conservative movement that has itself been in rebellion against the elder Bush ever since his brief presidency. The association between 41 and McCain makes sense given their obvious commonalities, but from a movement conservative perspective, “the optics” aren’t very wonderful at all.
Something to say?
