Via Shakes Sis, news of a little preview of Campaign 2008 from Mr. POW-Straight Talk himself:

It’s primed and ready to seduce centrists across the country. As Sis noted, there’s one picture suspiciously missing from the web site, one that tells you all you need to know:

This should run on every blog the moment McCain announces.

Remember, the guy McCain is practically humping in that photo really put the screws to him back in the SC primary in 2000. (Salon):

After Bush lost the Feb. 1 New Hampshire primary to McCain, he and his team made the tactical decision to get ugly in South Carolina. In the weeks leading up to the South Carolina primary on Feb. 19, McCain suffered one of the dirtiest personal smear campaigns in modern American political history.

“We play it different down here,” one of Bush’s top South Carolina advisors told Time magazine in February. “We’re not dainty, if you get my drift. We’re used to playin’ rough.”

Indeed. Push polls attacked McCain’s personal life and exaggerated his role in the Keating savings and loan scandal. Leaflets slammed his wife, Cindy, for her past addiction to painkillers. An e-mail from a Bob Jones University professor accused McCain of fathering children out of wedlock. A mysterious public action committee in favor of the Confederate flag — called “Keep it Flying” — sprang up overnight and slammed McCain in 250,000 leaflets.

Bush engaged in his own delightful activities, appearing at Bob Jones and telling a Christian radio station, “An openly known homosexual is somebody who probably wouldn’t share my philosophy.”

Flash forward to August, 2004, the GOP convention. Perhaps the good Senator has a midterm memory loss regarding that little time period in SC, or perhaps blocked it out entirely. Oh, forget being charitable – the bastard became Bush’s water boy. Try not to f*cking choke as you read this. (CNN):

And while this war has many components, we can’t make victory on the battlefield harder to achieve so that our diplomacy is easier to conduct. This is not just an expression of strength. It is a measure of our wisdom.

That’s why I commend to my country the re-election of President Bush, and the… and the steady, experienced, public-spirited man who serves as our vice president, Dick Cheney. Four years ago, in Philadelphia, I spoke of my confidence that President Bush would accept the responsibilities that come with America’s distinction as the world’s only superpower.

I promised he would not let America “retreat behind empty threats, false promises and uncertain diplomacy,” that he would “confidently defend our interests and values wherever they are threatened.” I knew — I knew my confidence was well placed when I watched him stand on the rubble of the World Trade Center with his arm around a hero of September 11 and in our moment of mourning and anger, strengthen our unity and our resolve by promising to right this terrible wrong, and to stand up and fight for the values we hold dear.

He promised our enemies would soon hear from us. And so they did. So they did.

I believe as strongly today as ever, the mission was necessary, achievable and noble.

For his determination to undertake it and for his unflagging resolve to see it through to a just end, President Bush deserves not only our support, but our admiration. As the president rightly reminds us, we are safer now than we were on September 11, but we’re not yet safe. We are still closer to the beginning than the end of this fight.

We need a leader with the experience to make the tough decisions and the resolve to stick with them, a leader who will keep us moving forward even if it is easier to rest. And this president will not rest until America is stronger and safer still and this hateful iniquity is vanquished. He has been tested and has risen to the most important challenge of our time, and I salute him.