McCain is thought to be as honest as they come. He doesn't tote the party line. He's an independent thinker and the extreme religious right hates him. John even railed President Bush for attacking his family during the 2000 South Carolina primary and told the Prez that he should be embarrassed. Last night on Hard Ball, he caved like a cheap suit on the issue of Rove-gate. He stuck to the Ken Mehlman defense.

Matthews asked the proper question and tried to get him to give a basic right or wrong opinion.

MATTHEWS: I want to know what your ethical standard would be here if it is shown that somebody in the White House, the vice president's staff or somebody on the president's staff, whoever they are, intentionally leaked an undercover agent's identity as a way of either just pushing them back or punishing them, whatever the motive. Do you think the standard should be, did they break a criminal act or not?

MCCAIN: I don't know, because it depends on—look, I can't be the president of the United States. I trust this president. I believe that he will do the right thing.

And, right now, the status of this situation is, is that Karl Rove still publicly denies that he did leak this name, OK. And I believe he has the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. And, again, as we said earlier in our conversation, he was trying to refute allegations that Ambassador Wilson made that turned out not to be true. And he knew they were not true. Well, I'm talking about Karl Rove knew they were not true.

Notice he didn't answer the question. Matthews wasn't asking about the President or the current status of the case. He asked him for an opinion. McCain brought it back to Wilson. The question is an easy one to answer. With McCain flopping around you have to figure that the entire GOP is worried about the direction and outcome of the investigation.