George Will: McCain as "Queen of Hearts"

Thank the heavens for honest conservatives like George F. Will, who still understand what conservatism really means and have the integrity and bravery to stand up to the madness currently taking over the GOP:

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."

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In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending. (For details, see The Post of Sept. 17, Page A4; and the New York Times of Sept. 20, Page One.)

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The political left always aims to expand the permeation of economic life by politics. Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale.

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Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

Pretty much says it all. Too bad most Republicans are either too stupid to listen, have sold out to the fringe religious nutbars, or only care about retaining power -- whatever that takes.

My fervent hope is that McCain loses -- badly -- and this causes the GOP to take a good hard look at itself, get rid of the warmongering neocons like Bush and McCain, tell the Christaliban wackos to take a hike, and come back as a party that is actually conservative.

Wow. George Will Hits McCain Hard...

Pretty damning stuff from a well-respected conservative (and others) on today's This Week with George Stephanopoulos (Will's comments are about three minutes in):

"I suppose the McCain campaign's hope is that when there's a big crisis, people will go for age and experience," George Will said. "The question is who in this crisis looked more presidential, calm and unflustered. It wasn't John McCain, who, as usual, substituting vehemence for coherence said let's fire somebody and picked one of the most experienced and conservative people in the administration."

Cokie Roberts compared McCain's optimism about the American economy – he said the "fundamentals of our economy are strong" days before the financial fallout -- to former Republican President Herbert Hoover.

Hoover also praised the economy after bank failures and job layoffs, saying "the fundamental business of the country… is on a sound and prosperous basis."

The Great Depression followed soon after.

"He’s a Republican and whenever Republicans get into this kind of mess… the specter of Herbert Hoover comes out to haunt them," Roberts said.

Sam Donaldson cited McCain’s past voting record as contradictory to his current claims of tough regulation and wondered if the senator was "getting his talking points confused."

"I think the question of McCain’s age is back on the table," Donaldson said.

Yeah, Republican drones will say this is just proof of the "biased liberal media" but they're morons. My response is simple: since Republicans now rely on propagandists like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh for their "news", reality has a liberal bias.