George Will: McCain is Unpresidential

I’ve often said that when things get really out of balance, sometimes God reminds us in a large way that we’re going in the wrong direction.

Since the Republican Convention, the McCain team has spun messaging around silly issues designed to belittle Obama and draw fire away from McCain. Gov. Sarah Palin, an unqualified presidential hopeful, served a giant distraction and for a while brought new life to a dull, cranky old candidate. Only problem is that she is a walking scandal machine. She has so much hanky panky in her history that the media are having a field day publicly auditing her life and finding contradictions with her public statements. NOTE to her public relations people: lying does not work. Lying is not a tactic. Lying is so Politics 1.0. We’re in the land of Politics 2.0 where honesty and transparency are cool. So get with the program!

Can you imagine trusting the global financial crises, the Middle East crisis, the energy crisis, and the unemployment crisis, to Sarah Palin? Would you trust Social Security to Sarah Palin? Would you want Sarah to negotiate the management of global nuclear arsenals? I wonder if Palin can even balance her checkbook. She just strikes me as entirely inexperienced vs. the mega problems she could face in the White House. She did not attend Harvard, she attended a community college. No rub on community colleges, but I opt for Harvard, Stanford and MIT grads because many were born smart and they worked hard enough their entire lives to achieve at a high level.

This week is a case in point that this White House has left the next president with a large array of complex mega problems for which solutions need to be found. Bush/Cheney have left the next president and vice president so many ill-conceived misadventures to untangle and fix.

This week a judge ordered Vice President Cheney to retain and not destroy his vice presidential papers. Cheney claimed the office of the vice president was not a part of the Executive Branch, hence those laws governing presidential paper retention not apply to him. I hope someone watches the VP because he’s likely to burn a whole bunch of paperwork anyway because he feel entitled. What a goon!

The world is out of alignment. Can you feel all the negative energy driving historical rivalries between the U.S. and Russia, the U.S. and Islam, the U.S. and Cuba, the U.S. and Iran, the U.S. and North Korea, and elsewhere. Soon we’ll have the Bush team out of there and we can hopefully get Obama’s team in to bring some intelligence, savvy and goodness back to governance.

Perhaps this historic financial crisis is reminding us to pick smart leaders. Perhaps this crisis is helping us finally be repulsed by the rank silliness and stupidity embedded in the McCain campaign strategy of slander, lies and innuendo. Perhaps now we’re seeing that the choice of Sarah Palin simply insults our intelligence.

And so at this moment in the history of our nation, the page is turning, and we’re not going to accept a continuation of 4 more years of the Bush/Republican/McCain team.

I was watching George Stephanapoulous’ show this morning. George Will remarked that during this financial crises which played out last Monday to Friday, we had a chance to see two potential leaders in action. Here is his commentary:

"I suppose the McCain campaign's hope is that when there's a big crisis, people will go for age and experience," said Will. "The question is, who in this crisis looked more presidential, calm and un-flustered? 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, Chris Cox, and for no apparent reason... It was un-presidential behavior by a presidential candidate."

Donaldson then jumped in: "It was two days after the he said the fundamentals of the economy were strong. His talking points have gotten all mixed up. And I think the question of age is back on the table."

"When I say age," he explained, "I don't know the difference between finding your talking points and not delivering the right ones, we have seen him do this frequently but this last week was the worst. Between two stops in Florida, as you say, he had to revise his thinking about what he wanted to say about the economy, wanted to feel the pain suddenly than say everything is great."

Will then added tough words: "John McCain showed his personality this week and made some of us fearful."

John McCain –an old man being run by the Bush machine. Sam Donaldson is right. His age, and his cancer, are issues. And I think Americans, Republicans and journalists with a scintilla of intelligence - are realizing that Sarah Palin makes Dan Quayle look like Albert Einstein. She is someone that we would not even want to give a guest pass into the White House. Can you imagine her managing the CIA, conducting our business overseas, convening military leaders, running the White House situation room, or leading a cabinet meeting?

And what about McCain simply wanting to fire the head of the SEC? For McCain and his propaganda squad, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox is a casualty of war -- a sacrificial lamb. Very military….get someone in front of a firing squad and pull the triggers in the public square. Don’t even give him a trial. Just a quick shot in the head. Shoot first and ask questions later.

Listen Mr. McCain, in a war you don’t shoot your colleagues. Especially when everyone's watching to see if you have a steady hand and brains.

Simply for puposes of political showmanship, McCain publicly beat up a fellow Republican who served 17-years in the house overseeing investor protection and U.S. capital markets.

Cox had some class and answered: "I've been in and around politics for many, many years. I'm very happy that as chairman of an independent agency, thousands of men and women at the Securities and Exchange Commission are working very, very hard to protect American markets and investors' confidence in them. Right now, with so much at stake in our country, there's no time for political sniping. This is a time and an opportunity for leadership.”

This economic theme will likely remain front and center. Remember McCain this week -- a case study in weak, confused and frantic leadership. A man tied to the architects of deregulation. A man surrounded by former lobbyists for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

George Will called him “unpresidential.” Sam Donaldson questioned his age and judgement. And those clarion calls will hopefully be seized upon.

And at the upcoming debate Friday night, I predict McCain is going to get fried because he loathes the press and he’s given them so much moronic activity to analyze and question. And no amount of backpedaling can protect him from the grilling he’s going to face at the Debates. Lucky for him, the press will refrain from a public embarrassment. That embarrassment McCain is bringing on himself.