thoughtfulAlso: why is he suspending his campaign? As Senator Obama and many others have pointed out: being president of the United States means being able to do more than one thing at a time.
Senator McCain also is saying he won't come to the debate on Friday if there isn't a deal in place to deal with the immediate financial crisis.
As David Letterman so succinctly put it last night on his show (which Senator McCain was supposed to be on, but cancelled at the last minute, saying he was on a plane to Washington -- except he wasn't, he was instead being interviewed by Katie Couric, who's on the same network as Letterman), isn't that what you have a vice-presidential candidate for? To pick up the slack? Why can't Governor Palin campaign while Senator McCain parachutes into the Senate to save us all from the unregulated banks?
It's a rhetorical question, but an answer can be gleaned from the train wreck that was Governor Palin's interview with Couric, which could kindly be called a train wreck. Every time she's allowed to speak without a script -- or, actually, the same script, since her lines haven't varied from stump speech to stump speech -- it's been a disaster, and this was probably the worst. If you don't believe me, click on this sentence and watch the video of the interview on YouTube.
This has been such a bizarre campaign. After hitting Senator Obama for months on his lack of experience, he picks a running mate with even less experience. The McCain campaign has tried to blame Senator Obama for the economic crisis by some of his past associations -- but Senator McCain was one of the Keating Five. He keeps insisting he's a maverick and he's going to change the status quo in Washington -- but he's been a major part of that status quo for 26 years now. He's calling for regulation of Wall Street after being one of the loudest drum-beaters for deregulation for three decades.
And then there's the party that was hammering Senator Hillary Clinton when she was running purely on the basis of her sex, only to turn around and cry sexism now when it's their woman getting hammered. Of course, just asking Governor Palin legitimate isn't sexism, it's journalism....
Putting politics completely aside for a second -- is this really the guy you want running your country? I'm seeing no indication that this guy can handle the day-to-day of the presidency.
One of my favorite episodes of The West Wing is "Game On," which is the presidential debate I always wanted to see and never have. President Bartlet has a line there that's worth repeating: "Every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many un-nuanced moments in leading a country."
This campaign has given many indications that Senator McCain may not be up to handling the nuances.....
