Hey, Senator McCain...just thought you might want to know...

Uh, Senator McCain? Don't look now, but...

Senator McCain, I don't want to bring you down. I mean, you only just finished gutting your Republican rivals for the nomination, and are just starting to get the right-wing nut jobs in line. But, just in case you aren't aware of it, your presidential campaign is on fire. And I don't mean that there is a hint of smoke. I mean it's burning. It's burning like Chicago in 1871, burning like a Frank Zappa guitar solo. Your campaign is burning so hot that Greenland's glaciers retreat 5 meters every time your name gets mentioned in the news cycle.

It doesn't seem fair, does it, Senator? You just can't seem to get a break. What do people have against you?

Never mind how you were so angry with your campaign people that you fired John Weaver and Terry Nelson back in July 2007 because you couldn't raise any money and nobody seemed to know or care that you were running for president. That's ancient history.

Never mind the recent New York Times story about your relationship with a female lobbyist, 30 years your junior. Never mind that she had clients with matters before the FCC to whom you wrote letters to help move things along in your official capacity as a senator. That story is just a smear by the liberal media.

Never mind that this story dredged up old memories of your days in 1989 as one of the Keating Five, when the Senate investigated you for your involvement with Charles H. Keating, Jr. and his failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. It was all Cranston's fault.

Never mind the hubbub with the FEC that came about when you cleverly applied to Bethesda Bank for a campaign loan using forthcoming federal funds as collateral, only to now try to back out of the public funding restrictions since you're the heir apparent to the Republican throne and those fat corporate checks, however grudgingly signed, are starting to roll in. Damn those pesky campaign finance laws anyway. They're too complex.

Never mind that the rabid conservative panjandrums don't like you and never have, even though you've bent your knee and kissed all the right --er --rings and tried so very hard to suck up to them with your flip-flopping on tax cuts and the use of torture in interrogations. In the long run, those people are just stepping stones, eh, Senator?

Never mind that your colleagues in the Senate, even the Republicans, view you as a hothead and a potty-mouth and are a little bit scared by you. They're just angry because you're a maverick, right?

And never mind even, that just today, your campaign co-chairman, Representative Rick Renzi (R-AZ) was indicted for fraud, extortion, and money-laundering. You can't keep track of every sleazy thing that the people around you might get into.

All of that is just part of the rough-and-tumble of politics, right, Senator? Why can't everyone be professional about it?

It was just politics back in South Carolina during the 2000 presidential campaign when Karl Rove spread rumors about your wife's use of drugs, and your child's legitimacy. It would have been petty for you to defend your wife and your daughter, right, Senator? You had your political future to think about after all.

You showed character and professionalism by letting it all go and embracing Junior four years later in the 2004 presidential campaign while he was smearing one of your fellow combat veterans.

What's a little slander between friends, eh, Senator?

And you're not afraid to break things up with a joke or two, right? Just like back in 1998 when you cracked that joke that went the reason Chelsea Clinton, who at the time was 17 years old, was so ugly was because her father was Janet Reno. (Million laughs, that one, Senator. Really.) Or, like when you made that (hilarious) joke about bombing Iran while mimicking that old Beach Boys tune. Or that other joke about being in Iraq for another hundred years. (That was a joke, right?)

But now, in spite of everything you've done, your campaign is burning to the ground.

It doesn't seem fair, does it, Senator? You can't catch a break. It's almost as if people don't like you, Senator. It's almost as if there are people that don't think you'd be a good president, people that think you're mean and nasty and probably not all that stable.

For the life of me, I can't imagine why.

Dig that smile!