Flash!! John McCain is Human!

 

(As if the Republican nominee would be the first president with a somewhat fiery temperament)

So that’s the best you’ve got for a Sunday banner headline? John McCain sometimes has a quick temper? This is the vaunted Washington Post we’re talking about. Ladies and gentlemen of the Post, if I had gone to my news director in Los Angeles back in the 90’s and suggested a serious piece on Bill Clinton’s occasional outbursts, he would have laughed me out of his office. Rightfully so. I might just as well have pitched a big story (or any at all) on what people do with their lawn clippings.

Senator McCain is a man I have not met or had the chance to interview, but from everything I can gather he flares up now and again. And so what? Those who know him well say he’s passionate about issues and principles. I find that quality to be mostly positive in an elected official. Certainly, it’s far better than the alternative.

No one says the Republican presidential nominee is mean or that he bullies subordinates, either of which would speak to his character in a truly profound way. What we are talking about here is McCain getting what some Southerners would call ‘het up’ over stuff that is very important to him, such as Congress’s economic recovery plan. That’s okay by me. I tend to get rather heated about such things myself, as I’m guessing you do too. It’s only human.

I can merely guess at what the Post’s editorial board’s thinking was when its members decided to run with that headline: A) We don’t like Republicans generally and B) McCain’s temperament is a legitimate barometer of his fitness to act as the nation’s top executive and commander-in-chief. The latter point is true enough and would hold water in the Arizona Senator’s case if he were some kind of blathering hothead with an extremely low flashpoint. But the fact of the matter is, that’s just flat untrue.

I will come right out and say that I find the Post’s action gutless and not a little dishonest. If you wish to challenge McCain on the issues, and I have no doubt the venerable Washington paper does, its reporters and editors being as predominantly liberal as most of their colleagues, then have the decency to do so. This kind of ad hominem attack should be confined to the seamier side of politics; it ought not to have a place in journalism. And that’s all I will say on the matter, which on reflection is plenty.

Moving on to genuine political news…Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary is being hyped as a “make it or break it” contest for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. I suppose that it is. There are 158 Democrat delegates at stake. It’s not a winner-take-all situation, but the perception is that if Clinton loses, or doesn’t win by enough, it will establish Barack Obama as the true national front-runner. My hope – and I’m honest enough to say I wish a plague on both their houses, politically speaking – is that the outcome in Pennsylvania will be just close enough to keep the nastiness and negativity going in the Democrat campaign. That would help John McCain and his temper.

The Republican nominee will be spending most of his Tuesday in Youngstown, Ohio, in the heart of the “rust belt”. There, the steel industry that once nourished the area has melted down. McCain, on a campaign swing through economically depressed parts of the country, is delivering his own message of hope. A key point is that new industries are coming that will provide fresh employment and economic growth. Historically, that’s pretty hard to argue with. For example, when the automobile came to prominence, a lot of buggy and harness makers, and their employees, were thrust aside. But they adapted over time and found new ways of suiting their abilities to new realities. Not in so many words, but that’s the message McCain carries. He uses the recovery of his own campaign, pronounced DOA less than a year ago, as a case in point. McCain says last summer, only his wife and mother were true believers and “…Mom was starting to keep her options open.” Funny, with a certain poignancy.

As I have said several times, I have my differences with John McCain, as so many conservatives do. But this November will see a major battle fought in what Bill O’Reilly calls “the Culture War”. John McCain now represents the best hope for preserving what most of us regard as the American way of life. God speed to him.

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