Senile, Sneaky, or a little of both?

It's not that he'd be Bush III, it's that he'd be Reagan II; Either McCain is an evil genius or a doddering old codger. Haven't we been down that road before? Yeah, say back in the eighties...

I got to meet John McCain once, it was when he first ran for the Senate in 1986. He gave a press conference at the offices of the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette. He seemed a little stiff and stand-off-ish, but not nearly as smug as Jon Kyle who was running to replace him as one of Arizona’s Congressmen.

I liked that McCain was willing to buck his party for the sake of what he believed was in the best interest of the country. I considered myself a fiscal conservative and was mad as heck at the Reagan administration for letting the federal deficit and the national debt run amok. McCain was a principle supporter of the Gramm-Rudman Act, which was supposed to automatically cut spending in the event of a budget deficit.

But most of politics is smoke and mirrors. One of the authors of Gramm-Rudman, was Texas Republican Phil Gramm.

Gramm had been McCain’s senior economic adviser. He isn’t anymore. You may remember a few weeks ago that he tried to tell people that we aren’t in a recession. "You've heard of mental depression;” he said, “this is a mental recession.” Gramm said that “we have sort of become a nation of whiners, you just hear this constant whining.”

I don’t know about you, but not only do I whine every time I fill up at a gas station, but if the price of oil doesn’t drop soon, I plan to whine a lot when it’s time to fill up the home heating fuel barrel. Coincidently, Gramm was being paid by Swiss bank, UBS to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis. McCain has been proudly campaigning on how he won’t be influenced by lobbyists.

What with the Housing crisis going on and failure and looming bail outs of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, I think it’s important to have a President who’s comfortable making decisions about the economy. McCain has admitted that “economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should”

But he has plenty of experience in dealing with issues of banking and predatory loans. Remember he was a member of the so-called "Keating Five.” Between 1982 and 1987, McCain accepted $112,000 in political contributions from Charles Keating Jr. and friends at the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, along with trips on Keating's jets.

But I’m more concerned with McCain’s performance in the areas of history and geography.
Just last week in an interview with Katie Couric on CBS, McCain boasted that President Bush’s “surge” in Iraq made a movement possible called the Anbar Awakening,” in which Sunni tribes united to resist Al Qaida. The problem is that the Anbar Awakening happened in 2006, whereas the American surge took place in 2007. I can’t help but remind you that Al Qaida wasn’t ever in Iraq until AFTER the United States invaded, because Saddam Hussein hated them, as do most Iraqis. Also keep in mind that it was Al Qaida who attacked us in 2001, not Iraq.

Also, has anyone told McCain that there is no Chezkslovakia anymore? How about that Iraq and Pakistan don't share a border?

At least McCain’s friends, Connecticut Senator Joe Leiberman had the decency to explain to him that Iran was training Hamas members, not Al Queda members.

Obama has utilized the internet not only to bring in millions of small dollar donors instead of relying on the conventional hand full of multi-thousand dollar donors that politicians used to, but also to establish a vast ground-roots movement, especially vitalized by young voters. On the other hand, 72 year old McCain doesn’t do the internet. I appreciate that not many 72 year old would feel the need to establish their own Facebook accounts, but too much information, education, communication and commerce take place on the web for any future President to be able to afford to be technologically illiterate.

He thinks that the media has been giving too much attention to Obama, but come on, if Barrack Obama had made the same kind of gaffes that McCain has been making- especially in say a two or three week period, wouldn't the media have eaten him alive?

There was a time when I had patience for, even a level of comfort with McCain, but I just can't seem to take him seriously anymore.

And here's another thing- (and please forgive me for using these ugly words, it's just to make a point) if it's wrong for Jesse Jackson to use the word "nigger," why is it okay for McCain to use the word "Gook?" Isn't it insanely racist against Asians?