MoDo's the latest to claim that McCain's just not the same any more; that h's not the same guy the press used to love. That angle was pressed in New York magazine this week, too. The notion that McCain's has lost all his pundit pals because he's reinvented himself as a dishonest pol.

True enough, we suppose. But we can't help thinking that Daily Howler might actually be closer to the truth by suggesting that the honor-driven McCain maverick the pundits once toasted never really existed, so the sorrowful obits to him now being printed up ring a bit hollow.