ONCE UPON A TIME OUT WEST : McCain in victory: Blunt, dogged, willing to offend even supporters (DAVID ESPO, 3/20/02, AP)

Gather round kids, and I'll tell you a scary story... Once upon a time in the Golden West, there was a really ambitious politician. In fact, he was so ambitious that he fell in with a crowd that included such notorious filth as Senator Dennis DeConcini, Senator Howard Metzenbaum and S&L baron Charles Keating. In exchange for some bags of loot, our ambitious hero was more than willing to don ethical blinders and he got himself in a heap o' trouble, nearly derailed that fine career.

So what did our hero do? Did he acknowledge that he'd let his dreams get the better of him? Well kinda... But then he had an even better idea : he decided that it hadn't been his fault at all! No way! It turns out that the whole system is corrupt. Not his fault?, heck, he's darn near a victim.

So he got together with a bunch of other heroic politicians and he wrote a bill that "cleans up" the system and will redeem his sins. Isn't that a happy story? Oh wait, I told you it was a scary story didn't I? Okay, here's the scary part--in order to assuage our hero's guilt, almost 300 million Americans will lose a portion of their constitutional right to free speech. Ain't that a kick in the head?