John McCain? You In There?

You know, I've said before that I used to somewhat admire McCain even as I disagreed with him vehemently, but he has become so single-mindedly determined to be president that he has put aside everything he used to stand for. Well, we caught a glimpse of the old McCain yesterday in Minnesota:

McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about Barack Obama's character, he described the Democrat as a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."...

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab." McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said. "No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues...."

But, you know what else? The whole thing has gotten away from him. He has created a monster—and Sarah Palin is more than happy to feed that monster:

The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP social conservatives.

I think it's as simple as this: McCain doesn't like who he has become in this campaign. I've read where several "unnamed aides" have suggested that his crotchetiness is a manifestation of his obvious discomfort with the persona he has to trot around to all these events.

Then there's the Ambien thing... I wasn't going to bring this up, because I really couldn't care less who takes sleeping pills and who doesn't. But I didn't realize that some people on Ambien can function in a wake-like sleeping state and then not remember what they did during that time. But let's just assume (= hope) that this is not the case with McCain. At the very least, there's no arguing with the fact that you shouldn't take Ambien unless you have a good 8 hours or so ahead of you to sleep—8 hours in which you won't be required to wake up and do something important, like "consider escalation from Defcon 4 to Defcon 3." I'm just saying.

Comments

[Margaret]

How can he NOT feel guilty about all the lies his campaign is trying to sell? He looks stressed, ill and angry. I ALMOST feel sorry for him.

[Nicholas]

Maybe, as you suggest, McCain has made some kind of Faustian bargain with the GOP, so that in order to win he has to allow them to reconstruct his persona. Not quite as bad as selling his soul. One can almost feel sorry for him, but then one remembers that he has that bespectacled harpy as his running mate who knows little of politics but knows a great deal about preaching to the like minded crowd, and all one can do is shake one's head and mutter that he should have known better.

[Wendy]

Too little, too late. He let a lot of those cries of "terrorist" and "Muslim" go unchallenged before he finally grew a pair. And Palin is still throwing red meat to the slavering winger crowds. Feh. Despicable.

[Jack]

McCain totally blew it when he picked Palin.