I see that John McCain has taken Grover Norquist‘s “no new taxes” pledge

(that’s Grover in the photo on the left), but, as Ezra Klein points out in the—decidedly liberal, pro-tax—American Prospect:

“The centerpiece of the health care plan he’s pushing is apparently an end to the employer health care deduction, which would suddenly transform about $1 trillion in currently untaxed wages into…taxed wages. So there’s all this money that employers currently don’t pay taxes on, and under McCain’s plan, they’re going to pay taxes on it. Taxes they didn’t have to pay before. Can someone explain to me how this isn’t a new tax?”

How is it that The American Prospect is more critical of McCain’s big government economics than, say, National Review, or The Weekly Standard? As “movement” conservatives fall behind the putative GOP candidate, groupthink sets in, and even the pretense of adherence to principle goes out the window.