When liberal blogs picked up the story that McCain had moved to the left on wiretapping, the McCain campaign issued a letter insisting that he still supported unconditional immunity, as well as new rules that would expand the nation's spy powers.

The campaign's response was consistent with McCain's past positions and votes. But it riled Andrew McCarthy at the conservative National Review Online, who read the campaign's position as a disavowal of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, and a wimpy surrender of executive power to Congress.

That's when the campaign issued the letter explaining McCain's new views of executive power, and revealing that McCain would, in certain future circumstances, rely on the same theory of executive power in wartime.

The closer we get to election day:
1. The harder it will be to know whether or not the candidates are lying.
2. The more authoritarian the candidates will act.

So it is now completely impossible to know what McCain actually thinks, but it is worth noting that the legacy of Bush's creative approach to the separation of powers is that Republican party now openly wants a candidate who won't let trite things like the Constitution and the Oath of Office get in their way, and they want their candidates to come out and say this publicly.

I do not see any reason why any libertarian would continue to be associated with the Republican party. There comes a point where you have to take a stand for something other than lowering taxes or you are not really a libertarian, and what better time than when your political party has become openly hostile to the Constitution?

McCain is shifty on spying