McCain is an admirable man because he seems to live by those words. That means he will make no excuses for the choices he has made, even if they turn out to be tragic.

  Yet McCain is being dragged down now by his loyalty to the very same Bush and his policies in Iraq. Earlier in the war, McCain was a fierce critic of the president’s strategy and tactics. But those criticisms count for little now. Bush destroyed McCain’s candidacy by design the first time and is smothering him by association this time.

McCain had hoped that this week would mark the beginning of his comeback, but it got off to a difficult start. Coverage of his Sunday appearance on “60 Minutes” was dominated by his apology for talking about how safe parts of Baghdad were — even as CBS footage showed that McCain’s stroll through a market was peaceful only because of the formidable military presence around him. Later this week, he’ll give the first in a series of major policy speeches.