WaPo's Milbank Cracks About McCain Being 'Liable to Break a Hip'

Out: Suggestions that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has lost his bearings. In: Jokes about him being "liable to break a hip."

Opening his Campaign Sketch column today, Washington Post's Dana Milbank painted the Arizona senator as a political dancer shuffling left-and-right all over the campaign floor:

If John McCain keeps dancing like this, he's liable to break a hip.

Last month, he shimmied to the left on energy policy, infuriating conservatives with a plan to cap carbon emissions. Yesterday, he shuffled back to the right, demanding an end to quarter-century-old bans on offshore oil drilling.

[...]

It was, in other words, a typical day in the life of McCain. Pulled between the need to appeal to independent voters and the need to placate the still-suspicious Republican base, McCain has been stutter-stepping his way to the GOP convention.

While it is fair to note McCain's delicate balancing act in reaching out to liberal-leaning independents while working to secure and retain the base conservative Republican vote, the "break a hip" snark is rather uncalled for.

I don't think I'm going out on a limb to predict that should McCain slip in the polls and have a hard time regaining momentum against Obama, someone in the MSM is going to bring back the tag line from the old Lifecall commercial, "I've fallen, and I can't get up!"