McCain Attacks Leader He Hailed as ''One of the Great Men in History''

Politico reports that, yesterday in New Mexico, John McCain harshly criticized the former leader of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, a man he once hailed as "one of the great men in the history of the world."

John McCain's views on former Georgia president Eduard Shevardnadze, a reform-minded architect of the Soviet Union's glasnost policy in the 80s, have done a startling 180.

Speaking about Georgia, McCain told a town hall in Las Cruces, New Mexico on Wednesday: "They had a corrupt government headed by a guy named Shevardnadze, who you may remember from the days of the Cold War. And they had a peaceful revolution and they took over, and they were putting democracy and freedom and human rights, and they were prospering."

In November 1999, the same John McCain described Shevardnadze as "one the great men in the history of the world" during a GOP debate at Arizona State University.

But "Startling 180s" are nothing new for John McCain. He'll say anything, even if it is completely opposite of what he has said before:

McCain Said He Might Include Musharraf If He Wrote A Sequel To His Book About Great Decisions By Extraordinary Leaders. According to the New Yorker: McCain was in New York to promote his new book, Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them, which he saw as a nice change from the usual campaign stuff… The hard calls discussed in McCain's book are an eclectic and decidedly historical bunch: Solzhenitsyn's decision to publish The Gulag Archipelago, Gertrude Ederle's determination to swim the English Channel, Reinhold Niebuhr's conversion from pacifism. Still, an obvious contemporary issue came to mind. Is Iraq a hard call? he said. I think it's not that hard, because I have had no doubt. It hasn't been a struggle within me. He identified Pervez Musharraf (My distinct impression of him is he's basically a humble, modest man who lives a fairly Spartan life) and Nicolas Sarkozy (whose name he pronounced Secorsi) as leaders who could, in time, merit inclusion in a sequel. [New Yorker, 9/3/07]

McCain on Musharraf Resignation: Good Riddance! "The resignation of President Musharraf is a step toward moving Pakistan onto a more stable political footing. Pakistan is a critical theatre in countering the threat of al Qaeda and violent Islamic extremism, and I look forward to the government increasing its future cooperation (with the US)," McCain said.

Sounds like that chapter isn't going to be in the second edition. Scrolling through the index, Pervez will be disappointed.

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