Waiting for McCain to Go Off? Maybe He Did

The McCain-as-loose-cannon theory has caused many campaign watchers to wait patiently for the moment when candidate John McCain would get so angry that he’d lose his cool in front of TV cameras. A moment highly anticipated because it would be immortalized on You-Tube and replayed forever. But it may be that we witnessed a McCain loose-cannon moment last Wednesday and we didn’t recognize it. Our Republican leaders are so heavily medicated, who would know? Although, last week “Newsweek” made an interesting observation when it wrote that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had become President George W. Bush’s surrogate since Bush has abdicated all pretense of leadership. Newsweek noted Paulson is a teetotaler. If Newsweek was using a code to let us know our Prez is drinking again, the magazine would merely have joined a long list of bloggers and commenters who are asserting the same thing. It’s not that Bush is heavily tranked that makes him seem out of it. It’s that he’s drunk. But back to McCain. As Frank Rich said in his op/ed column in the New York Times yesterday (“McCain’s Suspension Bridge to Nowhere”): “The question is why would a man who forever advertises his own honor toy so selfishly with our national interest at a time of crisis. I’ll leave any physiological explanations to gerontologists — if they can get hold of his complete medical records — and any armchair psychoanalysis to the sundry McCain press acolytes who have sorrowfully tried to rationalize his erratic behavior this year.” So, it would seem that John McCain’s minders are as convinced as the rest of us that he’s going to explode at some point and he’s been heavily medicated. But whatever medications John McCain is on can’t keep the man from forever and consistently acting in what he believes is his own best interest. Unfortunately for McCain, he’s 72 years old. He doesn’t realize you can no longer make high-road sounding claims for yourself while doing the opposite. He claimed he was immediately going to suspend his campaign in order to go to Washington to fix the financial crisis. But he didn’t suspend his campaign. None of his campaign sites ceased operation for even a nano-second. And he didn’t rush to Washington. He was filmed going on talk shows in New York to advance his campaign. He said he would not debate Senator Barack Obama last Friday night because his expertise was needed to save the US from ruin. But he did debate Obama. Many sources in Washington were quoted saying McCain not only did nothing to help the financial crisis, he actually obstructed the proceedings and his presence in Washington was not requested by the Repubs, it was dreaded. It looks like the loose cannon fired off a load and it dropped at his feet, dead. And now the latest news from within the McCain camp is that McCain is sorry he picked Palin for a running mate and Palin is sorry she accepted. One thing you can bet on. Palin will talk. Palin will spill her beans. Palin will write a book(s). Palin will unburden herself and betray everyone she knows. Oh happy day!