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Suddenly reversing course to advocate a fundamental governing philosophy that you’ve been fighting vehemently for more than two decades can tend to raise a few eyebrows. Yes, even in Washington.

So when Sen. John McCain this week finally added his johnny-mccain-come-lately voice to those who are pushing for stricter federal oversight to rein in the unbridled, out-of-control greed of Wall Street, brows were arched all over this land.

Imagine the difficulty McCain surely must have had even in uttering, let alone convincingly advocating, that long-despised “R” word — as in, “We’ve got to r-r-r-r-r-reg-u-late Wall Street to…um…protect the people who live on Main Street from its excesses, my friend! (cough, cough)”

Indeed, no reasonable person today even would attempt to disagree on this clear premise: that the current financial meltdown in this country is directly a result of years and years of Republican-led efforts to deregulate the banking and financial sector of the nation’s economy.

Regulation, at long last, no longer is the naughty word it had been perceived to be for much of my lifetime. In its place are gradually settling the once-golden terms “deregulate” and “free-market economy”, as one by one even hard-core conservatives are realizing that the watchful eye of government isn’t always the bogeyman they had believed it to be.

Sure, there have been occasional cases through history where governmental oversight went a bit too far. But by and large, the vast majority of governmental regulations DO serve a public good. Namely, they protect the public’s vital interest from larger-than-life multinationals who hire legions of lobbyists to protect their corporate and shareholder interests at any cost — knowing full well that the regulatory process, along with the media, effectively serve as the citizen’s lobbyists.

“Trust us — we know what we’re doing!” has been the steady refrain from Wall Street these past years when asking Washington to relax its oversight of the industry. And the Republicans, as always, have been right there to help them in their clandestine maneuvers.

McCain is no exception. A single attempt in 2006 to expand oversight of secondary mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seemingly is his only record through a quarter of a century in Congress of standing on the side of more — not less — government regulation.

For a detailed, thoroughly sourced history of McCain’s past statements on the matter, see today’s Global Investment Watch, which quotes the senator continuing his calls for less regulation as recently as July 2008 — only two months ago. Loosening regulatory restrictions, in fact, is a central tenet of McCain’s very campaign — a key talking point that, until this week’s quake on Wall Street, he rarely seems to have omitted throughout the year’s campaign appearances and interviews.

That economic creed seems finally to have caught up with him. And as a Washington Post analysis showed Wednesday, it could yet prove to be more than a thorn — more like an entire rosebush — in the side of McCain’s presidential campaign as it heads into the final stretch.

With venerable, even century-old financial institutions — bedrocks of the American economy for generations — now crashing down left and right into the figurative heap of rubble that had been mighty Wall Street, anyone wanting to see a bull run in the foreseeable future will need to travel to Pamplona.

It was a wholly avoidable mess, the likes of which America has not seen since the days of the Great Depression. Ironically, it was during those bleak years that McCain was brought into this world — now only potentially to have his lifelong dream shattered by another period of economic upheaval, though let’s hope of far lesser magnitude.

McCain’s incredulous attempt to paint a much rosier picture this week by insisting that the “fundamentals” of America’s economy still are sound is…well, putting lipstick on a bear. It’s still a big, bad, ugly bear, senator. Even if you’re so caught up in the Palin clamor that you don’t hear its growl until Nov. 4.