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Monday, August 4, 2008

Maverick Moment of the Day

posted by on August 4 at 9:37 AM

Jonathan Alter of Newsweek bitingly asks, “Where Have You Gone, John?

In the middle of John McCain’s dopey Britney & Paris attack ad, the announcer gravely asks of Barack Obama: “Is He Ready to Lead?” An equally good question is whether McCain is ready to lead. For a man who will turn 72 this month, he’s a surprisingly immature politician—erratic, impulsive and subject to peer pressure from the last knucklehead who offers him advice. The youthful insouciance that for many years has helped McCain charm reporters like me is now channeled into an ad that one GOP strategist labeled “juvenile,” another termed “childish” and McCain’s own mother called “stupid.” The Obama campaign’s new mantra is that McCain is “an honorable man running a dishonorable campaign.” Lame is more like it. And out of sync with the real guy…

I misread McCain. On the night of the 2000 South Carolina primary, I was in his hotel suite and watched Cindy weeping over what Rove and his goons did. Her husband was plenty mad, too. Now he’s got Rove’s protégé, Steve Schmidt, running his campaign. Eight years ago, McCain profusely apologized for playing racial politics in South Carolina by backing efforts to fly the Confederate flag at the state capital. Now he’s content to see race crowd out the economy in the battle for precious media oxygen. McCain argues that Obama opened himself up to attack by saying, “They’re gonna say he doesn’t look like those other presidents on the dollar bills.” But if his campaign hadn’t leaped on that Obama comment, it would have been another. Accusing the other guy of playing the race card is a not terribly subtle form of, well, playing the race card—and the victim.

The real question is what all of this might mean for a McCain presidency. The list of troubling portents is growing long: repeated campaign staff upheavals reflecting poor management skills; abrupt reversals on big issues like tax cuts and relations with Russia (where he was superhawk one day and superdove the next); shameless pandering on a gas-tax holiday that even his own economic advisers think is a joke; confused handling of Social Security that annoys all sides of the debate; bogus charges (e.g., Obama is causing high gas prices, Obama didn’t visit wounded soldiers because he couldn’t take the press) that undermine his integrity; and an angry, bunker mentality among aides that one GOP operative, fearing excommunication from Team McCain if identified, describes as “lacking only a Luger and a cyanide pill.”

Victory for McCain would hardly prove redemptive. “You can’t govern winning this way,” Weaver says. “We’ve seen that after the last two elections.” And defeat would leave John McCain feeling more than the usual depression, wondering why he mortgaged his precious personal honor just to trade up to the White House.

RSS icon Comments

1

We won't support spine-less NO-Bama and will re-defeat him in November!!!

Posted by clintonsarmy | August 4, 2008 9:52 AM
2

We support Bama NO defeat re-him November spine won't less!!!

Posted by clintonssarmy | August 4, 2008 10:04 AM
3

The most hilarious part? The Hiltons gave McCain the legal maximum ($4600, for both the primary and general) . . . and Mrs. Kathy Hilton was none too pleased about him using her daughter as political fodder.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/03/kathy-hilton-calls-mccain_n_116625.html

Posted by Zelbinian | August 4, 2008 10:04 AM
4

#2 - funny

Posted by MEC | August 4, 2008 10:27 AM
5

#2 - Unoriginal

Posted by deadenders | August 4, 2008 11:00 AM
6

He's not a maverick.

He's just a very angry old man.

Can't you tell?

Posted by Will in Seattle | August 4, 2008 11:26 AM
7

McCain is starting to sound like the kind of president the American people deserve...a no good son of a bitch!

Posted by Vince | August 4, 2008 12:46 PM

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