Think for a moment how McCain is depicted in the media you watch on TV. He's called a "maverick" by those on the right, and a "flip-flopper" by those on the left. He's either praised or criticized for his policy positions and initiative ideas that seem to contain lots of voter-pandering, and very little practical detail. He's deemed either out of touch, or refreshingly "outside the beltway", despite his years spent inside that fabled doughnut road.

What you almost never hear is "hot-tempered", or "dangerously impulsive", or "easily influenced by money". Why is that? These types of personal traits - more-so than any policy position - are vitally relevant with regards to the person we choose to be in charge of a mighty military force and thousands of nuclear warheads.

McCain's temper was more openly reported back in the 2000 race when the Washington Post reported this:

There's even a web-site dedicated to discussing his temper.

One post there discusses whether McCain suffers from PTSD. Is that something we want to have to worry about? The meme the Republicans would like to maintain is that McCain's military service makes him more prepared to be president. Yet we hear so much about how the experience of war leaves so many people psychologically damaged. McCain still calls the Vietnam people "gooks". If it's fair to say that his war service prepared him to be president, it's just as fair to say it left him too damaged to be president.

In the military, he was known as a hot-dogger. That seems like it could be a good thing, right? But in the military, being a "maverick" can get you and others killed. Here's video of the incident on the flight deck of the Forrestal where McCain's "wet starting" his jet resulted in a missile firing which created a deadly fire that killed scores of people (the video quality is very poor):



After the fire was finally extinguished, McCain was the first one off that aircraft carrier and he was immediately transferred. He was not, however, punished for his actions. His father the Admiral saw to that.

The one story that seems to be getting some play is the excessive donations he received from oil company employees right around the same time he changed his position on offshore drilling. So now he too is beholden to oil companies.

Hmmm... incompetence, impulsiveness, selling one's soul for oil money, influential father saving his ass. This truly could be Bush all over again. Despite McCain's attempts to distance himself from Bush, he keeps following the same patterns, and using the same language. He recently said we need to "surge the economy" (whatever the hell THAT means). He apparently also thinks it would be a good idea to arbitrarily invoke martial law and "surge" crime-ridden American cities:

Is this really the kind of guy that's fit to be president?... an impulsive wild west sheriff prone to fits of temper and impulsive actions? Is this the guy we want to preside over The Button? The beautiful SHINY button. The jolly CANDY-like button. WILL he hold out folks? CAN he hold out?

I think not.

(Bonus click: YouTube with some other footage about the Forrestal incident. It's a little scattered and tinfoily...)