06:15 pm
George Will and John McCain
A bunch of people have emailed me and asked me what I thought of George Will’s column today. If you haven’t seen it, you can find it here. Money quote:
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. . . .
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?
I wonder if Steve Schmidt will now say that Will is in the tank for Obama? Heh.
Althought I share my readers’ schadenfreude in seeing Will opening up a can of whoop-ass on “intemperate” John McCain, not one of my correspondents seems to have noticed why Will is unhappy with McCain: because he’s not acting like a conservative. Sure, Will says that he’s not suited for the presidentcy, but that’s code for “not adhering to conservative principles.”
So put away the party favors, please. George Will is unlikely to sway a single vote — it’s not as if the troglodytes now running the Republican Party read him anymore. And he is no more our friend today than he was yesterday.