Post-Ideological Leaders
It occurred to me today that one of the striking things about McCain's counterproductive and inappropriate Cold War bluster is just how out of step he seems with the leaders on the opposing sides of the conflict. He's like some angry ghost from the past, attempting to interject some grand ideological basis to what is little more than a petty conflict over resources and regional influence. McCain is literally from another era entirely, and his ridiculous theatrics have demonstrated just how dangerous it is to approach these situations with a 20th century mindset.
If elected, McCain would not only be the oldest president ever, he would also be one of the few major world leaders with a strong personal connection to the Cold War. For example, Mikheil Saakashvili is just 40 years-old and Dmitry Medvedev is just 42. Barack Obama, who is regularly portrayed as being overly youthful by the American media, is 47, older than both. Among the other G8 nations, Gordon Brown is just 57, Sarkozy is 53, Merkel is 54, and Harper is 49.
Common among all of these leaders, including Medvedev and Saakashvili, is a pragmatic realism that has wholly severed itself from the ideological conflict of the 20th century. Especially after the Iraq fiasco, the United States can no longer credibly insist that its every action is done in the name of the war against fascism and communism. That is just not how the 21st century works.