George Will Questions McCain's Readiness
This is a big deal. I’m no George Will fan, but he does represent the reasonable, intellectual, fiscal conservative side of the GOP. You know, a Republican who doesn’t hate gays, evaluate a VP’s readiness on how many polar bears she’s killed, and doesn’t base his foreign policy on the book of Revelation. Here he is in today’s Washington Post:
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated.
[...] Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.
It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?
Say it with us out loud, all you rational conservatives out there: IT’S OK TO VOTE FOR OBAMA, GEORGE WILL SAID SO. Now, doesn’t that feel better?
