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U.S. Senator John McCain says now that NATO military intervention in Libya is ending, military action to protect civilians in Syria might be considered.

(AP) BENGHAZI, Libya - U.S. Sen. John McCain, one of the strongest proponents in Congress of the American military intervention in Libya, said Friday that Libyan rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi’s troops are his heroes. (snip) When Obama acted with limited congressional consultation, McCain - who was the 2008 Republican presidential contender running against Obama - defended the president, saying he couldn’t wait for Congress to take even a few days to debate the use of force. If he had, "there would have been nothing left to save in Benghazi," the rebels’ de-facto capital.

Says Abuse of Detainees Helped al Qaeda Recruit Terrorists, But Opposes Investigation into "Enhanced" Interrogations. BY MICHELLE LEVI Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he thinks it is a "serious mistake" for the administration to focus on the past when investigating the interrogation techniques of the CIA under President Bush on "Face the Nation" Sunday. "For us now to go back, I think, would be a serious mistake. "I believe that the president was right when he said we ought to go forward and not back. I worry about the morale and effectiveness of the CIA. I worry about this thing...

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From the Washington Post today: McCain had been left for dead politically this summer, and now his decision to return to a state he skipped altogether in his 2000 bid for the White House is one of the many signs that the GOP contest for president is still in search of a front-runner. McCain has surged back into a strong second place in New Hampshire, where former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the GOP front-runner there, returned Wednesday in the hope of shoring up his eroding poll numbers. The two men traded angry, long-distance insults that signaled an abrupt end to...

(snip) ...... “It was communicated back to us very clearly from within the party that not only was Senator Lieberman not acceptable, but any pro-choice nominee was not acceptable, [and] it would lead to a floor fight at the convention with an alternate nominee for vice president put into play. “Blowing up the party wasn’t one of the menu items of things that were going to improve our situation,” he said. Schmidt also criticized his party’s political performance in the early days of the Obama presidency. “As a matter of reality, in the first 100 days, [the Republican Party] has...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Former Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has no illusions about the 2008 White House race. "God bless them," McCain said Thursday at the Heritage Foundation when reminded of the tens of millions of people who voted for him last year. "Over 50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin - mostly for Sarah Palin," McCain said to an eruption of laughter. But "there was a sizable majority of the other party returned to Congress. And, elections have consequences. Elections have consequences. And these consequences we are seeing now in full display."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama honored his vanquished Republican rival John McCain on Monday, describing the Arizona senator as an "American hero" while the Democrat prepared to assume the office that both men fought bitterly to attain. Obama and McCain clashed repeatedly on the campaign trail over foreign and domestic policy in sometimes heated exchanges that occasionally veered into the personal. But Obama made clear that period had passed even as he predicted the two would not always get along in the future. "John is not known to bite his tongue and if I'm screwing up, he's going to...

It's one of those things that sneaks up on you in politics, a sense of things happening not quite as you expected. It started in April when our Times colleague Louise Roug called with a quote from Sen. Hillary Clinton.

U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Phoenix) is opposed to the bill passed by the House Wednesday night, a McCain spokeswoman told PolitickerAZ.com Thursday. "The senator is opposed to the bill as it is written," said Leah Geach of McCain's Washington, D.C. office. She said she didn't have any further details to offer at present.

At least John McCain is back to his old self. This assumes, of course, at some point he wasn't.Believe me, he was. (See the entire 2008 campaign).He's back to being the crotchety old Republicrat spitfire, Mac the Mav.That reach-across-the-aisle, strolling-down-the-median joie de vivre he possesses (and can beckon at will) is throttling up for the new administration.Goodie gumdrops.Since the time is just about right for McCain to ride the wave of ascendancy back into the good graces of the media (who, you'll recall, once upon a time, had rockets in their pockets for him when he was still their beloved...

It's standard fare for a president to make a bipartisan gesture by including one member of the opposing party in his cabinet - just as it's always the case (lest we forget) that every president-elect vows to change the tone in Washington and reach out magnanimously to his vanquished opponents. But John Podesta, the former Bill Clinton former chief of staff who's spearheading the transition for the 44th president, said today that there would be independents and Republicans in Barack Obama's cabinet and "not just at a token level".

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton matches up well against Sen. John McCain in early polling about a possible presidential contest in 2008. A Time magazine poll released Sunday found McCain, R-Ariz., at 49 percent and Clinton, D-N.Y., at 47 percent among registered voters when people were asked which candidate they would support for president if they had to decide now. McCain had a 10-point lead over the Democratic nominee from 2004, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, and a 9-point lead over 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore in similar matchups. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said they have a favorable opinion of McCain...