The Shenandoah Valley News Today has noticed U.S. Rep. Steve King’s change of language where GOP presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain is concerned. King, who has invoked 19th century Mexican president and general Santa Anna in the immigration debate, used to blast McCain for being an “amnesty mercenary” for seeking compromise with Democrats on an immigration initiative — one that King thought forfeited American soveriegnty.

Now that the Arizona senator is the Republican nominee, King has shelved such comments and calls McCain a “true American hero.”

Here is the Valley News Today:

During a Town Hall meeting held Tuesday at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, King sang the praises of presumptive GOP candidate John McCain calling him a “true American hero.”

“Every day of his adult life, he’s served his country.”

A year ago, King referred to McCain as an “amnesty mercenary” and chided him in a March 15, 2007 article in the Washington Post for teaming up with Massachusetts liberal Teddy Kennedy on an immigration bill that King insisted would have “legalized and provided a path of citizenship, which is amnesty, for 66.1 million people.”