Does John McCain Have Alzheimer's?

I wouldn't really pretend to diagnose someone without seeing them, but at least we might do for fun what Bill Frist thought he could really do. So today we will play a new game I'd like to call "Does John McCain Have Alzheimer's?"

Let's look at the signs and see if they add up.

Is McCain practicing the Richard Fish (of Ally McBeal) philosophy of "bygones" or has he really forgotten what Bush did to him in the 2000 primaries? McCain has been working to get closer to Bush, from the hug pictured above to the Republican straw poll last week. Now he has picked a top Bush advisor to run his PAC. Memory loss or forgiveness? We report, you decide.

Then there's the question of judgement. It might make a sense to hitch your horse to a popular incumbent, but to Mr. 33% And Falling? That's no more sensible than to back the teaching of intelligent design.

We've seen delusions of grandieur as he's imagined being picked as VP choice by both Bush and Kerry.

We've even seen some aberrant behavior this year in his letter to Senator Obama.

There was a time when, compared to the Bush crowd, John McCain seemed to be a Republican who sometimes made sense. Now its getting harder and harder to tell them apart. Perhaps such a descent into irrationality is what is required to communicate with the Republican base these days. Such a theory as to McCain's strange behavior may be even more valid than to think he has Alzheimer's.