An Ugly Portrait of McCain

John McCain is stumping the country, asking "Who is the real Sen. Obama?" But the shoe may be on the other foot.

In a profile that summons up the hidden painting in "The Picture of Dorian Gray," Rolling Stone offers a history of John Sidney McCain that places the familiar heroic figure with a lifetime of service to his country in a light that makes even a reader opposed to his candidacy cringe.

Some of the story has been told before, most notably in the New York Times, but the unrelenting depiction of McCain as a reckless, spoiled Navy brat who was a selfish opportunist at every stage of his life, even during captivity in Vietnam, is so devastating that only its meticulous journalism makes it impossible to dismiss as character assassination in the last weeks of a campaign.

There are few anonymous sources in this narrative of names, dates, details and direct quotes from apparently reputable witnesses to McCain's life and career.

His supporters will predictably howl in protest, but if even half of what this indictment relates is true, John McCain makes George W. Bush look like a Horatio Alger hero who pulled himself up by his bootstraps.

The fair-minded can read and judge for themselves.