Saint John Still Tainted by Senate Murk

With John McCain the presumptive Republican nominee, Democrats are rushing to expose chinks in the Arizona senator's saintly armor, Michael Scherer reports in Time. Though McCain talks tough about special interests, he has often appeared to have done their bidding. He once, for example, wrote a letter on behalf of a donor after a fundraiser on said donor’s yacht.

DNC chief Howard Dean calls McCain a “situational ethicist” who “runs on integrity, but doesn’t seem to have any." McCain always counters by saying he has never betrayed the public trust, but even he admits that the Senate holds no saints. “All of us are tainted,” he said in 2002. “And I am one of them.” (More John McCain stories.)