Appearing on CBS' The Late Show with David Letterman to announce his candidacy last night, McCain repeated the same word for which Barack Obama had to apologize. Dan Riehl of Riehl World View caught the AP report:

What a maverick, huh?

WASHINGTON Mar 1, 2007 (AP)-- Republican presidential contender John McCain, a staunch backer of the Iraq war but critic of how President Bush has waged it, said U.S. lives had been "wasted" in the four-year-old conflict. Democrats demand the Arizona senator apologize for the comment as Sen. Barack Obama did when the Democratic White House hopeful recently made the same observation.

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said Wednesday on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman." "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

The link to the AP report and reader comments are at the link above. Hat-tip to Instapundit for the pointer.

McCain has been stepping up his criticisms of the conduct of the war lately, calling it a "train wreck" in California and labeling Don Rumsfeld as "one of the worst Secretaries of Defense" in South Carolina. It smacks of desperation.

McCain is pinning his flagging hopes on attracting independents and Democrats to vote for him in the Republican primaries as they did in 2000, making his challenge viable. There is a huge difference this time around, though.

In 2000, the Democrats didn't have a real contest. Bradley offered only token opposition to Gore, never even speaking harshly of him, so Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were free to cross over without worrying about the race on the other side. Many, no doubt, did so to oppose and/or embarrass Bush as much as to support McCain. This time the contest on the Democratic side is every bit as crowded and competitive as the Republican campaign, so it is doubtful those voters will repeat their migration to the GOP primary.

One of McCain's advantages should be the tradition of Republicans to nominate the "next guy in line." Hence, the "obvious" successors like Nixon in '60, Reagan in '80, Bush in '88, and Dole in '96 were chosen. The latter three, like McCain, had been the runner-up in the previous contested primaries in the party - BUT, unlike McCain, they all muted their bad-mouthing of the man who defeated them as soon as the result was clear. McCain behaved for the duration of 2000's campaign, and worked for Bush, but has spent the last several years burnishing his "maverick" reputation, often at the expense of the President and the party.

To many Republicans, apostasies like the Campaign Finance Reform Act and the Gang of Fourteen make him an anathema.

There is an even stronger trend in Republican nomination contests, though, which is the tendency to nominate the early frontrunner, as I posted on Tuesday. The latest polls show that is Rudy Giuliani, who seems to be widening his lead.

None of this should be news to McCain, of course. Is he sharpening the long knives to attempt to win the nomination by destroying the opponents, or is he positioning himself for a potential independent run?