McCain's absurd behavior

As usual, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show perfectly captures McCain's absurd behavior regarding the bailout bill: declaring a crisis (as Stewart notes: "John McCain is the only man who can impulsively overreact to something 10 days old!"), then taking 22 HOURS to go from NYC to DC, and then sitting there like a potted plant (senile elderly citizen?) while the deal falls apart around him: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=186055&title=mccain-returns-to-washington

 

A friend echos my views:

McCain’s behavior of the past 48 hours have resembled that of a petulant child more than a presidential candidate, there was a line I read last night from the republican minority leader’s chief of staff saying “Dodd and the Democrats put the deal together too quickly, before McCain could arrive back in Washington”….let me break this down for you…

First on John McCain’s return to Washington…

Following his heroic announcement that he would be suspending his campaign and going to Washington he….

1 – Went and got his make-up done for a sit down with Katie Couric that he filmed that evening

2 – Had dinner with his wife in NYC

3 – Spent the night in a hotel in NYC

4 – Spent the morning preparing and delivering his remarks to a global initiative conference

5 – Finally got into D.C. at about 3:30 PM the next day

Next on this staffer’s assertion…

1 – The fact that Dodd got a deal together quickly is bad?

2 – Before the chairman of the banking committee works on emergency legislation he needs to consult John McCain?

3 – The same John McCain who hasn’t voted since April?

4 – The same John McCain who has the lowest amount of recorded votes in the senate, even lower than Sen. Tim Johnson, who missed 8 months with a stroke

5 – The same John McCain whose membership duties don’t touch the banking committee?

I can only make two assertions about the facts above and what they mean about John McCain.  He is either…

1 – Completely self-absorbed, so indoctrinated with his own self-righteousness that he really thinks he’s the only one who can do this…if that’s how he feels why bothering debating or even having an election?  There’s no way this country functions unless John McCain gives it the okay.

2 – Playing politics and throwing a Hail Mary with something that really should be untouchable.  The very idea that he has injected the presidential race into something as important as this should be horrifying to any sane observer.  Bush, the Republicans and the Democrats were working on getting a deal together all day yesterday and they had to stop, move to the White House, and hold a symbolic meeting all because John McCain wanted a photo-op?  

At the bipartisan White House meeting that Mr. McCain had called for a day earlier, he sat silently for more than 40 minutes, more observer than leader, and then offered only a vague sense of where he stood, said people in the meeting.- NY Times

At this bi-partisan ‘commission’ he forced Bush to call he didn’t even speak, he sat on the end of the table opposite Obama and just sat there….we had to wait for him so he could get in front of the camera and not contribute any substance?  Now the Republicans, who were at least working with the Democrats have suddenly stalled completely and are re-positioning themselves behind McCain?  It is no coincidence that at 3 o’clock yesterday there was an agreed on deal, but that it suddenly fell apart as McCain arrived and he wanted to make sure there was still a reason to have his little commission with Bush.

My feelings are that this particular instance is another example of a politician who is a serial over-reactor, and one who is wholly unprepared, in substance and understanding, to take on these issues.  While I do think this particular move is over-whelmingly a political one, designed to paint McCain as a moderate patriot who puts his country first, the way he went about it so indicative of the type of person he is.  He jumped head-first into a campaign suspension without seeming to comprehend what a suspension entails.  A suspension means you don’t give interviews, you do not continue to run ads in battlegrounds attacking your opponent (See http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/what-suspensi-1.html) and you certainly don’t allow your VP (who I will be happy to write an e-mail about) continue to be your attack dog (or Pitt Bull with lipstick as she likes to say).

What this shows is McCain’s penchant for over-reacting without thinking of the consequences, and more importantly, without having a clear understanding of where he stands on the particular issue.  What does this say about McCain’s ability to deal with a nuclear Iran?  To be president there has to be a certain calmness and an ability to step away from the situation and constantly re-evaluate…McCain’s approach of shoot first ask questions last is a terrifying scenario considering the shape we are in.

As the days go on I have become more and more convinced that a McCain presidency would be so intensely disastrous to what we have built as a nation.

McCain/Palin…Shameful.