I've written before about how John McCain has his staff and his own campaign Web site refer to him as a "great hero." I've always thought hero status was something others called you (people you don't pay), not something you call yourself. Now fast forward to John McCain's decision not to let Sarah Palin do interviews or press conferences. In today's Washington Post, Howie Kurtz reports that McCain's people say Palin may do one - ONE - press conference before the election. And in the mean time, it's not really clear if she's going to do any interviews at all between now and the election, says McCain's staff.
Think about that.
McCain is 72 years old, has had 4 bouts of serious melanoma (one of the deadliest cancers), and was tortured for 5 years. Any 72 year old would be at risk of showing signs of his age - confusion, forgetfulness, and even possibly senility and dementia. But throw in 4 serious bouts of a deadly cancer and 5 years of torture, and your 72 year old quickly becomes a heck of a lot older. And in fact, this is exactly what we're seeing with McCain. He only holds one event a day, he takes "naps" while Obama plays sports, he suffers bouts of confusion - thinking Spain is in Latin America, forgetting where Pakistan and Iraq are located, thinking Al Qaeda had ties to Iran (and making the mistake again and again), thinking the surge troops had been removed from Iraq when they hadn't, thinking Czechoslovakia is still a country (and saying it four times), thinking the Georgia/Russia conflict was the first serious international crisis since the Cold War (forgetting the first Iraq war, the current Iraq war, September 11, the war in Afghanistan, and the overall war on terror), thinking Vladimir Putin is the president of Germany, thinking he invented the Blackberry, and more - and he shows signs of physical infirmity (the droopy eye).
John McCain is willing to risk the stewardship of our country, should he die in office, to a person who is unqualified and untested, and who has already shown outward signs of being something of an idiot. Nothing is less honorable, less heroic, than that.
And today, McCain's staff made clear to Howie Kurtz that it wasn't going to change.
"I know the media is throwing a temper tantrum about this," [McCain spokesman Michael] Goldfarb said. But, he said, "she was so beat up the first week when she came on and this campaign has had fraught relations with the media ever since. There's just not a tremendous amount of concern. The campaign is resolved not to allow the media to dictate her schedule. . . . This is mainly an inside-the-Beltway issue."So vetting our possible future president, testing whether she even has a brain, let alone is qualified to lead America during war time and economic crisis, is "an inside-the-Beltway issue."
Thus is the arrogance of the self-defined hero.
