INVISIBLE GIANT IZE CREAM KONE!!!
Last night, an hour before the debate, I was defending John McCain in a discussion with Mike. "Defending" is a strong word. Let's just say I was trying to see the man's good side, imagining, in my weak and wishy-washy liberal way, that he feels a bit bad about the mediocre hatchet job his campaign has waged against Obama. I watched the clips where the crazies in the audience shouted "Kill him!" and "Traitor!" or claimed that the senator from Illinois was an Arab (i.e., "Muslim and terrorist"). Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw McCain's face go slack and his head shake in those clips. I hoped that this genuine American hero was thinking, "My God... What have I allowed to happen? I'm doing the same thing Bush did to me."
Ever see Falling Down? A terrible movie, but there was something sadly poignant about the moment when Michael Douglas' character, after mounting a murderous campaign against society's "injustices" says, "I'm the bad guy? How did that happen?" (I don't think I'm the first person to draw this comparison, but I can't recall where I heard it first.)
Last night, watching John McCain, it was more like beholding a man besieged, figuring he'll take down as many cops and passerby as he can before they kill him. It was a shameful and disturbing display. A man who to me, for a very long time, seemed like a not-too-bad alternative if Obama lost, finally looked like a bomb ready to blow.
I kept thinking, up until McCain fired the first irrational salvos at Obama, that the Arizonan might dig deep and find the old honorable warrior inside of him and say, "Senator, you're right. My campaign went too far and I am truly sorry for falling into the divisive mudslinging and whisper campaigns my party has dealt in since the Reagan years. I often refer to my sense of bipartisanship and how I occasionally buck my own party. You may have also noticed that I've referred to both the New Deal and Great Society, both Democratic programs in my speeches. Let me quote Isaiah then by way of another Democrat, Lyndon B. Johnson, and say, 'Come now, let us reason together.' We're both reasonable men, and this country deserves better."
Gosh, I'm sorry I misjudged you so badly, Senator McCain.