Christopher Buckley and his framed cartoon. . .

. . .capture the essence of the grousing over John McCain among conservative hardliners. At this point, you just have to dismiss what remains of the howling discontent as grandiloquent silliness. Buckley addresses one of the more knuckleheaded notions of the cockeyed right nicely, here:

Some of the anti-McCain shrieks on the right have averred that it would be preferable to let a Clinton (Hillary, technically) or an Obama have the presidency, so that the post-George W. Bush (“compassionate conservative,” small or large C not mattering much at this point) mess will land on Democratic laps and not ours.

This is an odd and sour banner to unfurl. It’s hard to imagine Ronald Reagan, or for that matter other conservative icons (Churchill, Margaret Thatcher), pounding the podium and announcing: “O.K., here’s the plan — we’ll tank this one and then look like heroes four years from now. Let us march!”

Unfortunately, the folks who would benefit most from his instruction are either deaf to reason, or too busy counting their confederate money in their Y2K bunkers to see what's staring them straight in the face.