McCain and Obama Deserve Each Other

The temper tantrum letter written to Sen. Barack Obama by Sen. John McCain causes more people than Obama to wonder what prompted it. The Senate is filled with prima donnas and none are more sensitive to the need for adulation than the Illinois Democrat and the Arizona Republican. Ever since ethics raised its head as a juicy issue for presidential wannabe’s a few months ago, all of them have been playing in the sandbox. No big surprise that Obama, who’s being stage managed by David Axelrod, does not want to dilute his rock-star celebrity by working with another rock-star, McCain.

Is it a surprise is that McCain reacted in such a tempestuous way? Not really, and it is something that McCain idolaters should consider. Not long ago I talked with a national reporter who was visiting spouse in-laws. The reporter has long covered McCain in the Senate and was on the receiving end of an unaccountable blast from him. This is what the journalist said in paraphrase:

Few people realize what an erratic major presidential candidate McCain would be were he to get the Republican nomination in 2008. We had a taste of it when he ran against Bush in 2000 and blasted the entire evangelical Protestant leadership—all of it!. Frankly, there are some people who say he’s nuts. --What does that mean? It means that one’s emotional conditioning can be irreparably damaged by years of torture. The Bush people alluded to it indirectly in the campaign of 2000 which sent McCain off on a tantrum, claiming that for this draft-dodger to question my emotional stability was an insult and blah-blah-blah. But the fact is that unrelieved mental torture works a terrible price on one. I always thought Denton [Republican Sen. Jeremiah Denton of Alabama, held for many years at the Hanoi Hilton after being shot down in Vietnam] was goofy. Take a look at the Admiral [James Stockdale] who ran for president with Perot, the guy who began his debate by asking “who am I and why am I here?” The unspoken problem is not that McCain will be too old—72—in 2008, but something that nobody likes to even think about—the question of instability. For one thing, if anyone brings it up he’s a goner, given the kind of sensitivity people have to war heroes being criticized.

So likely it won’t be brought up.

Even bringing it up in this oblique way is going to get me a lot of vicious comments on this blog but fire away. Remember I’m only quoting somebody else.