SEPTEMBER 16, 2008 --

Seventeen months ago – April 10, 2007 – Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote a column called “The McCain Tragedy.” Apparently the “tragedy” was that Sen. McCain was appeasing Republicans (in his run for the Republican presidential nomination) and was being loyal to President Bush “and his policies in Iraq.”

Mr. Dionne wrote: that McCain’s “efforts at appeasement have muddied his image as a heroic dissident while bringing him little gain. And so he runs behind Rudy Giuliani in the polls and Mitt Romney in fundraising.”

As LPR reads the Dionne column with less than two months to election day, the columnist was predicting that McCain would not get the Republican presidential nomination – unless he ran as a quasi-Democrat.