This story is a bit old, and I’d love some comment from those Republican Whack jobs who promoted it, now that John McCain is their standard bearer. WorldNetDaily, that whack job of a news web site that makes FauxNews look fair and balanced by comparison, ran a story back in February noting the connections and close ties between John McCain, George Soros, Teresa Heinz and the Tides Foundation. (As I recall, Teresa Heinz was also attacked in the 2004 election for her association with Tides.) Anyway, the gist of the whole thing is that McCain founded the Reform Institute a while back, and even though he severed ties with the organization when it was enmired in controversy, that means he is buddy buddy with some of its “radical” funders. Here’s a snippet from the WorldNetDaily article:

As Sen. John McCain assumes the GOP front-runner mantle, his long-standing, but little-noticed association with donors such as George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry is receiving new attention among his Republican critics.

In 2001, McCain founded the Alexandria, Va.-based Reform Institute as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros’ Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry’s Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations.

McCain used the institute to promote his political agenda and provide compensation to key campaign operatives between elections.

In 2006, the Arizona senator was forced to sever his formal ties with the Reform Institute after a controversial $200,000 contribution from Cablevision came to light. McCain solicited the donation for the Reform Institute using his membership on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, he supported Cablevision’s push to introduce the more profitable al la carte pricing, rather than packages of TV programming.

Yet, the Reform Institute still employs the McCain campaign’s Hispanic outreach director, Juan Hernandez, as a senior fellow of its Comprehensive Immigration Reform Initiative.

As WND reported, Hernandez serves as a non-paid volunteer for the McCain campaign. A dual Mexican-U.S. citizen, he was a member of former President Vicente Fox’s cabinet, representing an estimate 24 million Mexicans living abroad. Hernandez, with a “Mexico first” message, has argued aggressively against building a fence on the Mexican border, insisting the frontier needed to remain wide open so illegal immigrants could easily enter the U.S.

I’m thinking this is a mighty lame connection that these Republican whack jobs are making, and the Republican bloggers who have picked the story up in the past prove just how whack the attack on McCain is. There’s Michelle Malkin and David Horowitz, for instance.

Look, people get upset when there are inferences out there that McCain is too old, even though there are reports that McCain has thought seriously about pledging to serve only one term because of the age issue. Whole bunches of people got exercized when Wesley Clark noted, rightly, that getting shot down and being a POW are not in themselves qualifications for President. Clark is still getting slammed. Why is it that no Republican whack jobs are getting slammed for impugning John McCain’s patriotism by linking him to George Soros, and a whole raft of liberals? Oh My Gosh, why he’s actually been funded by liberals!

Why? Well, Republicans like WorldNetDaily, David Horowitz and Michelle Malkin are too busy flip flopping on John McCain to be accountable for their statements trashing him. That trashing has taken place for the last several years. Please understand, I think John McCain himself is a major offender in the flip flop category, and if it was an Olympic event he’d be a favorite for the Gold, even though he is older than God. I suppose we could say John McCain is a flip flopper supported by Republican pundit flip floppers, eh? Hey, could the AMA list being a Republican as a mental illness? Perhaps we could then get a drug (other than Oxycontin) that would cure them of their Republicanism.