Well, it’s certainly beginning to feel that way. Whether or not the Republicans will implode spectacularly in the days to come is still to be seen, but that is clearly what they merit after the maddeningly irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as veep nominee.
A McCain presidency would always have been a horrible mistake. After George Bush seemingly did all he could to weaken American influence by means of puerile overreach, McCain comes along to remind us that things can still get worse. He is, and always has been, more aligned with neo-conservatives than Bush. I suppose he’s not exactly a neo-conservative, but rather a “national greatness conservative.” Neo-fascism or economics: it’s all just semantics. McCain promises to intensify the Bush approach to foreign affairs. Now, with the Palin choice, it’s increasingly clear that McCain will actually have to do things, rather than simply offer symbolic support as Bush has, for the Christian Right, since they know McCain is not one of them. Ain’t it clear what America be needin' these-a-days? A more theocratic, hawkish version of Bush.
As I say, it has always been rather clear that a McCain presidency would be a drastic mistake, as regrettable as the reelection of George W. Bush. But until recently, the McCain camp could present its case to the public with misguided but possibly sincere arguments. The excitement for Barack Obama had died down considerably as Hillary dragged the primaries on and on, miserably. McCain’s stranglehold on the news cycle and his recent success in defining Obama as a celebrity further depressed the Obamaphiles, who hadn’t been given proper sustenance since Obama’s magisterial speech on race back in March. This election, always so clearly about how America would respond to the wreck of the Bush years, was widely considered a referendum on Barack Obama—whom people still treat as somewhat alien, for whatever reason.
Last Thursday, Obama effectively parried McCain’s best swings, and reminded the country that we mustn’t let the Republicans “make a big election about small things.” That night, the McCain campaign was literally dumbstruck by Obama’s speech, and released a weak, paragraph-long “rebuttal.” Then the Palin pick. If you for a second believed McCain’s claims that Obama—a man of liberal ideas but an evidently prudent temperament—was unready for the presidency, those claims were revealed as the disingenuous slogan of convenience they always were by the pick of Sarah Palin. There is no evidence that this woman, who was not yet governor of Alaska when McCain began this presidential campaign, has ever seriously thought about foreign policy; personally, I cannot think of another nominee for such an office in our history of whom this would be true. But besides picking someone manifestly unprepared to be president, McCain apparently barely vetted this woman. Her anti-corruption credentials, of which so much was made by the earlypress on her, seem relatively unimpressive in light of the news that she managed a 527 for Ted Stevens, originally supported the "Bridge to Nowhere," was a prodigious seeker of pork as mayor of Wasilia, and is under investigation for abuse of power. Far from being a reformer, she seems corrupt herself. McCain has revealed himself as plainly unfit for the presidency with this choice. He is irresponsible and flitty.
It is important to reiterate that McCain may still win. The great American public, so admirable in countless ways, is capable of certain decisions of stunning stupidity. But let me say that, judging it as an actual argument, McCain just gave up every pretense of deserving the White House. It’s getting so very transparent…
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