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Thursday, November 15, 2007

McCain's Macaca Moment

I suppose I should say something about Senator McCain's "macaca" moment, i.e. his inappropriate response to a questioner who asked him "how we beat the bitch" (meaning Senator Clinton). I think several things:

1. The faux outrage by the likes of Keith Olberman over McCain's failure to admonish the questioner is as hypocritical as it is fatuous. Where was the outrage among Democrats when Senator Harry Reid called George Bush "a loser" in front of school children or when Senator Kerry called him a "f-ing idiot" or when lefties of various denominations call him or the Vice-President murderers, liars, Hitler clones, chimps, etc? Senator McCain's reaction to Senator Clinton being called a bitch is to what Democrats have called President Bush as a burp is to a hurricane.

2. Sen. McCain's apparent acquiescence in the questioner's insult of Sen. Clinton is not incompatible with other things that I've read about his temper and his mean-spiritedness (See The Ugly Side of John McCain). It is symptomatic of a character that I would be uncomfortable voting for even though I agree with Sen. McCain on many of the issues at stake in the coming election.

3. If the election next year is between Senator McCain and Senator Clinton I would still vote for Senator McCain. He is not only much the better qualified of the two, he is not the one, after all, who used the derogatory term. Senator Clinton, however, has been reliably reported to have on occasion used demeaning language to describe Jews. She is reported to have once called a campaign aid an "f-ing Jew bastard," and she essentially called General Petraeus a liar. That seems to me to be far more offensive than any alleged shortcomings in John McCain's character.

4. My favorite all along has been Mike Huckabee. It still is.

RLC