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Unfit for the Office
Author: BobR    Date: 08/08/2008 12:02:52

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:
While rising in the GOP presidential polls, Sen. John McCain is facing questions about what some Arizona political leaders view as his quick temper – and whether it might hinder him as president.

In a front page article and separate editorial Sunday, The Arizona Republic said it wanted the nation to know about the "volcanic" temper McCain has unleashed on several top state officials.

Those who have been on the receiving end of a McCain uproar include Republican Gov. Jane Hull, former Republican Gov. Rose Mofford and former Democratic Mayor Paul Johnson of Phoenix.

Mrs. Hull, a supporter of GOP presidential front-runner George W. Bush, has acknowledged that her relationship with McCain has been cool and told an interviewer recently McCain "has to keep control" of his temper....

.... Mrs. Hull told the Times that McCain's temper "is something that John has to keep control of." According to the Times, when Mrs. Hull was asked to describe McCain's temper she pretended to hold a telephone receiver several inches from her ear.

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:
When an audience member asked him how he planned to reduce urban crime, McCain praised Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s efforts in New York City before invoking the military’s tactics in Iraq as the model for crime-fighting:

MCCAIN: And some of those tactics — you mention the war in Iraq — are like that we use in the military. You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement, etc, etc.

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...)

 

227 comments (Latest Comment: 08/09/2008 04:09:21 by clintster)
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