Former John McCain media “fans” — like Joe Klein and Richard Cohen — assert that they no longer support him because he has changed. At NRO, Rich Lowry argues that they’re ditching him only because this time, he has a chance to win.

The enduring scandal of the McCain campaign is that it wants to win. The press had hoped for a harmless, nostalgic loser like Bob Dole in 1996. In a column excoriating Republicans for historically launching successful attacks against Democratic presidential candidates in August, Time columnist Joe Klein excepted Bob Dole — not mentioning that Dole had been eviscerated by Clinton negative ads before August ever arrived.

The press turned on McCain with a vengeance as soon as he mocked Barack Obama as a celebrity. Its mood grew still more foul when the McCain campaign took offense at Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” jab. “The media are getting mad,” according to Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz. “Stop the madness,” urged Time’s Mark Halperin, exhorting his fellow journalists to fight back against the McCain campaign’s manufactured outrage.

McCain was harmless to these twits in 2000, when he seemed to be bucking the GOP establishment and would have no chance of getting his party’s nomination, let alone defeating Captain Planet that November. Joe Klein, for his part, has viciously ranted about John McCain since he won the GOP nomination. It adds up to the fact that neither Cohen nor Klein has a single decent principle.