As Obama roams, gathering glory for the Presidential race and the American nation, McCain is at home bringing shame to our political process.

Harsh words, but that is the point, and if I had any alternative than to write them, I would. But this week, McCain has sunk lower into the mud pit, slinging slime without a sense of moral or intellectual compass. We will begin by reviewing what things that might pass as substantial that he’s said:

Zilch. That’s what. Short list of things. Everything was an attack on Obama.

And folks, even if you’re a McCain supporter or GOP loyalist, you have to admit a candidate should provide a more substantial platform than, “The other guy sucks.”

Problems with this struck McCain directly this weekend, as the New York Times refused to publish his Op-Ed piece “on Iraq.”

This rejection spawned all manner of partisan bickering, but the reason the Times rejected it was because the piece had no plan for Iraq or Afghanistan - it was only an attack on Obama.

[NYT op-ed editor, David] Shipley wrote that McCain’s article would “have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.”

Why a man seeking to be Commander-in-Chief might need to have a plan to resolve the two debilitating wars we’re in is apparently beyond most of the media, who painted the event like a partisan snub. Any who looked closer than the flicker of the idiot box saw better, noting that McCain’s only “plan for victory” so far - attack Obama as defeatist or wrong on The Surge - probably won’t bring peace to the Middle East. Even Ann Coulter bashed the article as moronic.

Speaking of the Surge, we’re brought to McCain’s next blunder: His citing that it was the Surge that led to the Sunni Awakening, not the Awakening that led to the “success” of the Surge. That is just dead wrong. If you turn the most significant source of our casualties and direct it against the enemy, that is the critical factor - not increasing troop strength.

From there, McCain’s comments only get worse. And again, dear reader, I wish there was something else to say about the guy, but after scouring WorldNetDaily, RealClearPolitics and Human Events all morning, this is what I got:

First was his ad linking Obama with Castro. This is in the same vein as his ad linking Obama with Ahmadinejad.

To both, I note two things: One, nothing is dumber than equating talking to the enemy with weakness or sympathy; sooner or later, before a war or after, you’ve got to talk. And two, if you consider this just part of politics, why should we not hope for better?

Ask why the other side isn’t running ads featuring McCain with the North Vietnamese generals, Saudi extremists or Pakistani dictators.

A quick answer is brought to light by the other ad highlight from the McCain camp this week - namely, that the Press has McCain’s back anyway. McCain’s second ad portrays the media’s “love affair” with Obama - yes, the same guy who they kicked in the ribs for putting his kids on a 10-minute interview and hide positive polls about.

It is McCain, not Obama, who the media is in love with. I will enumerate for those shaking their heads and thinking about Chris Matthews’ “leg thrill.”

First, McCain has continuously been able to say he stands “for victory” in Iraq - supposedly unlike his opponent - while never being asked to define what that means. On the most critical question of our age, a matter we’re investing hundreds of billions-with-a-b dollars and hundreds of thousands of military lives into, he has not been asked to answer when and how we’re going to get a pay off. If you had cancer and went to your doctor, and he wrote a perscription that said, “Get well soon,” wouldn’t you feel a bit slighted? Apparently the press is okay with that.

After all, they love endless war - it means soaring ratings; endless bitching.

But secondly, McCain has more skeletons in his closet than the Addams Family, and the Press is touching on none of them. Obama’s already had his time through the ringer on Rezko and Wright. Pundits still cluck doubtfully as to whether he’ll win without Hillary on the ticket. We hear nothing of McCain’s past.

We don’t hear how he denounced his country when in captivity. We don’t hear how he opposed the POW committee he served on. We don’t hear about the Keating Five. And I’m not saying we necessarily should - I find those things about as irrelevant as Obama’s past - but I do want to point out whose negatives the press is obsessed with and who they’re giving a pass.

So to reiterate, this week McCain shamed the Presidential campaigning process by moronic and harmful guilt-by-association, and he shamed it by masking his attack piece as an op-ed on a critical issue, and he shamed it by complaining about a problem that probably is the opposite of what’s actually the case. He topped it off with downright namecalling:

He ran an ad directly blaming Obama for rising gas prices. The problems with this abound:

It’s dumb, first of all. Even if you support domestic drilling, you have to recognize that those vast domestic reserves here at home will, first of all, not have much effect on gas prices. The USA is a small factor in global gas prices, having 1.8% of the global share. ANWR’s cumulative amount would increase that to 2.2%. And that would take years to develop.

Second of all, it’s a distortion. Obama’s opposition to gas tax suspension and domestic drilling was hardly to blame for soaring gas prices.

But third of all, it could work, because people don’t know any better. And that, in my opinion, is the worst sin of all - exploiting the ignorance of the people rather than helping them understand things better.

Of course, McCain’s campaign depends on that. Every incident above is invested wholly in ignorance. Not in hope, not in knowledge of a better way, not in leadership.

And that is a shame - a shame on McCain and a shame for a country that expects and gets no better.