He once was a real independent voice with his own perspective.  A man who would (occasionally) buck the party line in order to tell the truth (as long as the political cost could be limited).  Now he's 100% in the tank for the vast right-wing conspiracy and willing to ignore reality, pander, lie, break laws he wrote himself, engage in blatant corruption, or fly in the face of common sense in order to give George W. Bush a third term, and promote the old politics of division, lobbyists and the status-quo.

The good ship John Sidney McSame has run aground on the shoals of discredited conservative dogma.  Only his true political base, the press, has failed to notice.