As Hillary Clinton prepard to formally announce her endorsement of Barack Obama for President, some of her disappointed and disheartened supporters have vowed to support John McCain. Angered by what they see as sexism and disrespect from the media and political establishment, these Clinton backers threaten to turn to a Republican who stands opposed to virtually everything they hold most dear. But two episodes from John McCain's recent past - "the Bitch" and "the Joke" - should remind all Democratic voters who the real purveyor of sexism and disrespect is.
At an event in South Carolina last November, John McCain and his supporters showed the warm welcome Hillary's ardent followers can expect (video here). When a woman asked, "how do we beat the bitch?" McCain laughed and called hers an "excellent question." As ABC recalled the encounter:

An older woman stood and asked him, "how do we beat the bitch?"
Groans and applause followed.
"May I give the translation?" McCain asked.
"I thought she was talking about my ex-wife," joked a man in the audience.
"But that's an excellent question," McCain said. "You might know that there was a poll yesterday, a Rasmussen poll, identified, that shows me three points ahead of Senator Clinton in a head-to-head matchup."
"I respect Senator Clinton, I respect anyone who gets the nomination of the Democrat party," McCain continued.

McCain showed so much respect for Hillary Clinton that he refused to apologize the next day. Worse still, his campaign claimed media bias in the coverage of the affair, and sought to raise money from its Hillary-hating supporters in its wake.
More disturbing still, the media consensus was that McCain's dalliance with the B-word is not only good politics, but somehow permissible given the caricature of Hillary Clinton conservatives have successfully propagated. (Imagine for one moment the firestorm had anyone similarly called Laura Bush a bitch.) Howard Kurtz of CNN and the Washington Post declared that CNN (which McCain aide Rick Davis deemed the "Clinton News Network"), "may have overdramatized the incident." The Politico's Mike Allen, while appearing (ironically) on CNN, summed up the conventional wisdom:

"But what Republican voter hasn't thought that? What voter in general hasn't thought that and what people like about McCain is his straight talk, his candor."

While John McCain might be forgiven for his mishandling of the "Bitch" episode, there are no excuses for his disgusting 1998 joke at the expense of a teenaged Chelsea Clinton.
As David Corn reported in Salon, John McCain back in 1998 used the occasion of a Republican Senate fundraiser to slander President Clinton's daughter and attorney general. Following in the proud tradition of Rush Limbaugh (who in 1993 called the young Chelsea "a dog"), Mr.Straight Talk joked:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."

As Maureen Dowd rightly predicted at the time, Senator McCain's vulgar slur produced no backlash, as he "so revered by the press that his disgusting jape was largely nudged under the rug."
But McCain's response to Dowd provides a telling glimpse into the character of the man who would succeed George W. Bush as the next Republican president. In a phone interview, McCain brushed off his grotesque insult as the equivalent of a rambunctious teenager egging a neighbor's house:

''This is the bad boy,'' he said in a phone interview. ''It was stupid and cruel and insensitive. I've apologized. I can't take it back. I could give you a whole bunch of excuses, but there are no excuses. I was wrong, but do you want me crucified? How many days does it need to be a story?''
He said the Senator who spoke just before he did to the Republican fat cats made a tasteless joke about Viagra. ''So I got up and said, 'You think that was a tasteless joke? Listen to this one.' The minute it came out of my mouth, I thought, 'Oh no, this is a terrible mistake.'''
But, he added, defensively, ''I will always maintain a sense of humor. Life is too short not to.''

McCain was right that this was a terrible mistake, though apparently not a politically damaging one. (Ironically, Don Imus of all people, who just called Barack Obama, "almost a bigger pussy" than Hillary Clinton, was appalled by McCain's vulgarism. "It's horrible, yecchhh!" he said, adding, "This guy is a genuine American hero. I don't know why they do it. Some idiotic effort to be one of the guys.") McCain ultimately wrote a letter of "abject apology" to President and Mrs. Clinton (though not to Janet Reno).
Of course, that was then, this is now. During his now infamous "green screen" speech on Tuesday, John McCain reached out to Hillary Clinton's supporters. "Senator Clinton has earned great respect for her tenacity and courage," he said, adding, "I am proud to call her my friend."
With friends like that, the understandably upset and heartbroken supporters of Hillary Clinton don't need enemies.
UPDATE: While the above is limited to his direct affronts to the Clinton family, John McCain's treatment of his first wife and unspeakable term of non-endearment for his second wife won't be well received by HIllary's supporters, either.