John McCain, commonly referred to as a "moderate Republican Senator, has long been a target of his party's base. He has joked many times in the past about the beating he took after fighting for immigration reform and for standing up to Bill Frist. Indeed, he can rightly say that he stood up to his party's base, which is rare amongst Republicans. While many have long admired "the Maverick", the conservative movement has always been as disrespectful as possible towards the senior Senator from Arizona.
However, the ungrateful far-right should be reminded that if it were not for John McCain, there would be no option to filibuster President Obama's judicial nominees.
Remember the "nuclear option"? Then-Majority Leader Bill Frist(R-TN) had this brilliant plan of destroying the filibuster, thereby making every judicial nominee need only a simple majority of votes in the Senate to be confirmed. Imagine if then-Sen. Frist had gotten his way. Alito would still have been confirmed, along with several other conservatives to lower-benches. And today, President Obama would have far more votes than he needs to nominate just about anyone he wanted to the Supreme Court of the United States. The only reason President Obama does not have that ability is because of John McCain and a few others who were willing to stand up to the crazy-right.
The crazy-right should, at the very least, thank John McCain for having done the right thing in preventing the nuclear-option from being implemented. Senator McCain should also remind the Senate Republicans about their previous position on judicial nominees under former-President George W. Bush; everyone deserves an up-or-down vote.