Personally, I think this is all Juan "Bipartisan" McCain's fault.
Exactly. From the moment McCain lost the primaries to GW, he made GW tippy toe around his campaign ideas not to get McCain upset. Then when Bush became President, McCain let it be dangled that he might switch parties so GW had to kiss his rear end to try to save the tie in the Senate.
The MAVERICK only cares about himself and nobody else.