On the August 10 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace did not challenge McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' assertion that "[y]ou'll never find [Sen.] John McCain changing his stripes just because of an election," despite criticism of McCain's shifts on policy, some of which he has acknowledged. In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented throughout the course of the 2008 election season, in an attempt to satisfy conservative Republicans and more closely conform to the views of the GOP base, McCain “chang[ed] his stripes” and reversed his position on comprehensive immigration reform and the religious right.

• Immigration. McCain now says that “we've got to secure the borders first” -- a position at odds with his prior assertion that border security could not be disaggregated from other aspects of comprehensive immigration reform without being rendered ineffective. McCain further stated during the January 30 Republican presidential debate that he would not vote for the comprehensive reform bill he co-sponsored with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) if it came to a vote on the Senate floor. A November 4, 2007, Associated Press article reporting on McCain's reversal noted that McCain now “emphasizes securing the borders first,” and also quoted McCain stating: “I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift. ... I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people's priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders.”

In a March 3 New York Times article, Elisabeth Bumiller wrote, “Senator John McCain likes to present himself as the candidate of the 'Straight Talk Express' who does not pander to voters or change his positions with the political breeze. But the fine print of his record in the Senate indicates that he has been a lot less consistent on some of his signature issues than he has presented himself to be so far in his presidential campaign.” The article stated that McCain “has also expressed varying positions on immigration, torture, abortion and Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary.” On immigration, Bumiller wrote:

Mr. McCain has also moved from his original position on immigration. In 2005, he joined forces with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to co-sponsor an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. Although the legislation included toughening border security, its center was a provision that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for many of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Conservatives immediately branded the bill as amnesty and fired steadily at Mr. McCain. After seeing his campaign and his fund-raising efforts derail last summer -- which his advisers attributed in large part to his position on immigration -- Mr. McCain now says that he got the message from voters. These days he speaks almost exclusively about border security, although he does say that it is not possible to deport 12 million illegal immigrants and that he would never deport the mother of a soldier serving in Iraq.

Additionally, in a June 20 Politico piece, journalist Gebe Martinez reported on McCain's reversal on immigration:

McCain, the Arizona senator, dismayed Latinos last year when he stepped back from his immigration bill that would have tightened the borders and legalized undocumented immigrants. As boos and hisses from angry Republican conservatives grew louder at campaign events, he switched course and vowed to “first” secure the borders. Were his failed bill to come up again, he would not vote for it, he said.

[...]

Trying to regain Latino support, McCain has chastised Republicans who stoke the fires of the immigration at election time. And at a private meeting with Chicago-area Latinos last week, he promised to push for a comprehensive immigration bill.

“It sounds like he's trying to have it both ways, and it's not convincing anyone,” said Frank Sharry, who also was involved in immigration bill negotiations when he headed the National Immigration Forum.

This is not the McCain Hispanics thought they knew. Even after the 2001 terrorist attacks placed an emphasis on national security, McCain's speeches to Latino audiences and on the Senate floor prioritized the compassionate side of the immigration argument.

He understood that border security “first” means “deportation only” in the eyes of immigrant activists, and he championed a broader approach.

As the Senate mulled immigration in 2006, McCain often stood in the Capitol's corridors, pounding his fist in the air, arguing that border enforcement would not work without simultaneously penalizing employers who hire workers illegally, creating a temporary worker program and finding a way to bring 12 million illegal immigrants “out of the shadows” of society.

“It won't work! It won't work!” he protested of suggestions to do enforcement first. The stool cannot stand on one leg.

• Religious right. During his 2000 presidential run, McCain called Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson “agents of intolerance,” asserting: “Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on the right.” However, McCain stated on the April 2, 2006, edition of NBC's Meet the Press that he no longer believed Falwell to be an “agent of intolerance.” Subsequently, McCain delivered the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University in May 2006. A May 14, 2006, Los Angeles Times article (retrieved from Nexis) described McCain's address as “an olive branch to Christian conservatives who could impede his presidential ambitions.” The Times also noted that "[a]fter McCain accepted the invitation, critics accused him of pandering for political purposes."

Additionally, McCain admitted that during the 2000 South Carolina primary he pandered to Republican primary voters by failing to take a consistent position on whether the Confederate flag should fly atop South Carolina's Capitol dome. As reported in an April 20, 2000, New York Times article, McCain said that the flag was a “symbol of racism and slavery” but on the very next day called it a “symbol of heritage.”

Indeed, in an April 20, 2000, speech, McCain stated that he had “compromise[d]” his “principles” in his statements on the flag:

McCAIN: My ancestors fought for the Confederacy, and I am sure that many, maybe all of them, fought with courage and with faith that they were serving a cause greater than themselves. But I don't believe their service, however distinguished, needs to be commemorated in a way that offends, that deeply hurts, people whose ancestors were once denied their freedom by my ancestors.

[...]

As I admitted, I should have done this earlier, when an honest answer could have affected me personally. I did not do so for one reason alone. I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So, I chose to compromise my principles. I broke my promise to always tell the truth.

From the August 10 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:

WALLACE: Let me switch to another member of the administration, the vice president, who we now find out has been invited to speak at the Republican convention on the first night But here is what McCain said about Cheney last year about the “mishandling,” McCain's word, of the Iraq war.

Let's put it up: “Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the vice president and, most of all, the secretary of Defense.” Mr. Davis, given their sharp differences over Iraq, over the handling of interrogations of terror detainees, why is John McCain inviting the vice president to the convention?

DAVIS: Because I think John McCain believes that the only way we're going to change the culture of this town, the only way we're actually going ever start getting anything done, is if we stop putting our own self interests ahead. You know, if he wanted to make a point and, you know, strike out at this administration, it would have been very easy to do that, but he is not that kind of candidate.

He is the kind of man who says, “Look, we've got to get everybody on board in order to get progress in this country. I'm not going to, you know, take retaliation or retribution against anybody, whether they're Democrats or Republicans.” If we are going to move forward, this culture has to change. The only guy who's been able to do that in this town for the last eight years is John McCain.

Barack Obama has never sided against his party's interest on any important issue. He's never joined with Republicans across the isle like John McCain has with Democrats. We have an ad out that shows a lot of Democrats, leaders in Congress, saying great things about John McCain. Of course, that was before there was a political campaign. You'll never find John McCain changing his stripes just because of an election.

WALLACE: What kind of Vice President does John McCain think Dick Cheney has been.