That Uncomfortable Question
22 July 2008 10:49 am by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
 |
| Vanity Fair covers The New Yorker |
Politico
tackles the question today.
Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) said “Iraq” when he apparently
meant “Afghanistan” on Monday, adding to a string of mixed-up
word choices that is giving ammunition to the opposition.Just in the past three weeks, McCain has also mistaken “Somalia”
for “Sudan,” and even football’s Green Bay Packers for the
Pittsburgh Steelers.Ironically, the errors have been concentrated in what should be his area
of expertise – foreign affairs.… But McCain’s mistakes raise a serious, if uncomfortable question: Are
the gaffes the result of his age? And what could that mean in the Oval Office?
…
It’s the elephant in the room. Is McCain’s age an issue, considering he keeps
stumbling over foreign policy issues that he should know?
Perhaps it’s something else. Just maybe John McCain’s comparison to George
W. Bush has more to do with yet another Republican seeking the highest office
who is all image, with little gray matter to match. The fact is that John McCain
finished near the bottom of his class. But people can be intelligent, even astute,
without a college degree. On the other hand, some people get by on image alone.
No one can doubt that long before Barack Obama took the traditional media and
most blogggers hearts away, present company excluded, it was John McCain who owned the media
at large. Very few talking heads or political writers could resist McCain’s
biography, so that’s where their critical questions stopped. But does biography, no matter how heroic, which no one is doubting,
transfer to depth of political understanding needed to be president? Judging from past presidencies, many who are elected failed this test.
However, given the gaffes, from Sunni-Shia confusion that needed a Lieberman
whisper to correct, to ignorance on Social Security, to misstating the borders
of Pakistan, what makes for McCain’s continual flubs, gaffes, rhetorical screw ups, embarrassing ignorance? People are asking the
age question. But just maybe they should be asking the knowledge question.
It could simply be a case of a war hero getting a pass on the basic questions
a leader in this land should have to answer correctly before he or she should
be considered for the top job in the world. Maybe the John McCain we think we know, the guy the media has built up, isn’t the John McCain of reality, with scrutiny finally revealing all.
Considering we’re an American idol nation the truth may not matter. It didn’t
in the primaries.
