Comment Re:Two words (Score 1) 3709
You give McCain too much credit, which is a testament to his very successful self-branding efforts.
He might be more intellectually curious than GWB (so is the average bacterium), but he has some fatal flaws I would not want to see in a President. He prides himself on making visceral snap judgements rather than informed ones (see his Veep pick). About the nicest thing you can say about his military service is that he was tortured nearly to death in Hanoi, which no doubt left an indelible mark on his mental well-being. He has a reputation for a very short and volatile temper. PTSD, a proclivity for snap-judgements, and a short fuse are a potentially fatal cocktail for the guy with the big red button. Thus, his nasty Rovian campaign and his Faustian shift to red-meat GOP base rhetoric are not the only reason to reject him for this gig.
Conversely, Obama is a cerebral Constitutional scholar known for his unflappable cool temper, his knack for cooperation, and undeniable charisma. Maybe a lot of people voted for him for the "wrong" reasons, but we're so much better off with him that I couldn't care less. Indeed, some of the fearful right wing might be pleasantly surprised at just how radical and scary Obama isn't. But then maybe they are the same people who still approve of the job Bush is doing, and are therefore hopeless ideologues who cannot be reasoned with.
I'm glad you made the right choice! I grew up in both "real" and "fake" America, so I was also disgusted with that desperate last gasp from that doomed campaign of fear and division.
He might be more intellectually curious than GWB (so is the average bacterium), but he has some fatal flaws I would not want to see in a President. He prides himself on making visceral snap judgements rather than informed ones (see his Veep pick). About the nicest thing you can say about his military service is that he was tortured nearly to death in Hanoi, which no doubt left an indelible mark on his mental well-being. He has a reputation for a very short and volatile temper. PTSD, a proclivity for snap-judgements, and a short fuse are a potentially fatal cocktail for the guy with the big red button. Thus, his nasty Rovian campaign and his Faustian shift to red-meat GOP base rhetoric are not the only reason to reject him for this gig.
Conversely, Obama is a cerebral Constitutional scholar known for his unflappable cool temper, his knack for cooperation, and undeniable charisma. Maybe a lot of people voted for him for the "wrong" reasons, but we're so much better off with him that I couldn't care less. Indeed, some of the fearful right wing might be pleasantly surprised at just how radical and scary Obama isn't. But then maybe they are the same people who still approve of the job Bush is doing, and are therefore hopeless ideologues who cannot be reasoned with.
I'm glad you made the right choice! I grew up in both "real" and "fake" America, so I was also disgusted with that desperate last gasp from that doomed campaign of fear and division.