What Really Happened to John McCain?

Those of us who didn’t just surface from a subterranean fallout shelter know that there are two John McCains. The circa 2000 John McCain was the “Maverick” John McCain (because apparently he was the legend of the west). While technically a republican, most republicans bitched about him and democrats considered him to be one of the few tolerable ones.

Then, ’round about 2005 or so, John McCain changed. Right when he should have been distancing himself from Bush, he started laboriously tonguing his ass crack. Religious nuts Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who he had previously criticized, suddenly became his pals. The Bush tax cuts he voted against were suddenly a good idea.

There were many theories as to why this sudden change occurred. Some thought it was just pandering to the party base for his inevitable 2008 presidential run. Others thought a specific deal had actually been struck, i.e. Karl Rove as his campaign strategist in exchange for continuous public blow-jobs given to Bush.

But I think I’ve finally figured out what happened, as evidenced by the following picture.

This post was inspired by this thread on democraticunderground.com. The McCain picture used was supplied by user Chulanowa.