John McCain really has this
bitter old crank routine down cold. Here he is responding to a Phoenix town hall questioner's request for him to please stop calling undocumented immigrants "illegal":
McCain also declined a 25-year-old dreamer’s request to “please drop the i-word” — “illegal” — when referring to undocumented immigrants.
“Someone who crosses our borders illegally is here illegally,” McCain said. “You can call it whatever you want to, but it’s illegal. I think there’s a big difference between someone who does something that’s illegal and someone who’s undocumented. I’ll continue to call it illegal.”
McCain is being touted as one of the reasonable ones on immigration reform, one of the "Gang of Eight" (sweet merciful crap, how I loathe these "gang" nicknames they come up with), which mostly means that unlike certain rabid members of the House, he doesn't think our new border moat has to be electrified or have alligators in it, at least not unless or until some alligator farm lobbyist comes to town with an offer he just can't refuse.
World's greatest deliberative body, and so on.