| Frank Rich in the Sunday NYT steps up with a thesis that I have heard several times from the hard Christian Right, Palin's the strength of the ticket and they (pardon the passive construction here) don't care about John McCain's health record. They are putting up with him, but will not be catering to his every whim, if by some miracle he gets elected. If Rich is right then we have gone beyond issues decisively into the territory of character, in which case Johnny McCain, womanizer, foul-mouth, spoiled brat who should have been tossed out of the Naval Academy his second year there, but wasn't, the liar, about-face and step on his own shoe-laces mind changer, member of the Keating Five (not a rock band, you know) comes up decisively short.
Rich is only partly serious though. His column is mostly tongue in cheek, exploratory, looking around for something to chew on and finding only the slightly embossed imprint of his own teeth, clearly the result of a prolonged grimace. Funny thing, though, R.J. Eskow in Smirking Chimp thinks she is setting up for 2012, which amounts to the same thing. Out with the old tired maverick and in with the cute new one, eh!
JB |
