The danger here for McCain is that there are bountiful stories attesting to his volcanic lack of self-control, capricious moral standards, and lack of political judgment.

In 1999, when McCain was battling George Bush for the Republican nomination, the Arizona Republic, one of the most conservative dailies in the country, editorialized about "less flattering" aspects of the senator's character "worthy of voter attention and consideration. Many Arizonans active in policymaking have been the victim of McCain's volcanic temper. McCain often insults people and flies off the handle." There is reason, the editorial concluded bleakly, "to seriously question whether McCain has the temperament, and the political approach and skills, we want in the next president of the United States."

Though the same paper has offered demure support for McCain this time around, Democratic campaign commercials in the fall will surely be citing the paper's 1999 verdict, along with the considered judgment a few weeks ago of Thad Cochran, the Republican senator from Mississippi and a man who's known McCain for 30 years, that "the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded."

There was a famous fight in Arizona that went on for years about Mount Graham, on which the federal government wanted to put a telescope. Indians said it was sacred. Greens said its slopes sheltered the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel.

In 1992, a couple of well-respect-ed physicians, Robin Silver and Bob Witzeman, went to meet McCain at his office in Phoenix to discuss Mount Graham. At the time of McCain's 1999 run, the doctors told my CounterPunch colleague Jeffrey St. Clair that at the mention of the words "Mount Graham," McCain erupted into a violent fit. "He jumped up and down, screaming obscenities at us for at least 10 minutes," Silver said. "He shook his fists as if he was going to slug us."