John McCain, Grown-Up
Turning the table.

May 25, 2001 8:50 a.m.

t's grown-up to send out a statement castigating your own political party on one of its most difficult recent days. It's grown-up to so crave media attention that you can't suffer in silence another Senate "maverick" dominating one full news cycle. It's grown-up to hope that a president of your own party fails. It's grown-up to hold him in contempt, laugh at him on political chat shows, and never, ever give up your smoldering resentment of him. It's grown-up to think every bad thing in the republic somehow emanates from "K Street." It's grown-up to leverage your paranoid fantasies into baldly unconstitutional campaign-finance legislation. It's grown-up to take the agenda of the New York Times, cosponsor it with some Democrat or other, and pretend you are an original thinker and courageous political pioneer. It's grown-up, in short, to be John McCain.