Tuesday, August 19, 2008

More questions that will never be answered

Jack Cafferty puzzles over John McCain's lack of depth after 71 years of life:

It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president. When asked what his Christian faith means to him, his answer was a one-liner. "It means I'm saved and forgiven." Great scholars have wrestled with the meaning of faith for centuries. McCain then retold a story we've all heard a hundred times about a guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand.

Asked about his greatest moral failure, he cited his first marriage, which ended in divorce. While saying it was his greatest moral failing, he offered nothing in the way of explanation. Why not?

Throughout the evening, McCain chose to recite portions of his stump speech as answers to the questions he was being asked. Why? He has lived 71 years. Surely he has some thoughts on what it all means that go beyond canned answers culled from the same speech he delivers every day.

He was asked "if evil exists." His response was to repeat for the umpteenth time that Osama bin Laden is a bad man and he will pursue him to "the gates of hell." That was it.

Later in the article, Cafferty addresses his fears about McCain:
He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the "Straight Talk Express" for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he's reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner -- short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets in over his head very quickly.

I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see into his soul.

George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.

He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.
Exactly. Thank you, Mr. Cafferty for saying it out loud.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have corresponded with John McCain on and off for years on various veterans issues, and I am really at the point of wondering if he has a form of dementia.

Colonel Bud Day, an ex-POW, lives here, and McCain has come by to visit him. Col. Day is a lawyer and has been suing the government for years to get the benefits that were promised. My Mother has volunteered at Day's office over the years, and met McCain. At 83, she's wondering the same thing when he's on camera - "What's wrong with him?"

Remember, from her point of view, he's not that old.

I remember Reagan, and McCain is acting a lot like Reagan, but not covering the problem as well.

ellroon said...

Holy crap, Bryan. They really do want another Reagan, don't they? Getting someone to be president that is so out to lunch that the staff can get away with anything...

Steve Bates and I have talked about this several times. His mother had Alzheimer's and he recognizes the odd quirks that she developed long before she was diagnosed being very much what McCain seems to be going through right now.

God save us all if McCain wins.