i found this interesting, so i thought i’d repost. see the original story here.
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Commentary: Is McCain another George W. Bush?
by jack cafferty
NEW YORK (CNN) — Russia invades Georgia and President Bush
goes on vacation. Our president has spent one-third of his entire two
terms in office either at Camp David, Maryland, or at Crawford, Texas,
on vacation.
His time away from the Oval Office included the
month leading up to 9/11, when there were signs Osama bin Laden was
planning to attack America, and the time Hurricane Katrina destroyed
the city of New Orleans.
Sen. John McCain takes weekends off and
limits his campaign events to one a day. He made an exception for the
religious forum on Saturday at Saddleback Church in Southern California.
I think he made a big mistake. When he was invited last spring to
attend a discussion of the role of faith in his life with Sens. Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton, at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, McCain
didn’t bother to show up. Now I know why.
It occurs to me that John McCain
is as intellectually shallow as our current president. When asked what
his Christian faith means to him, his answer was a one-liner. “It means
I’m saved and forgiven.” Great scholars have wrestled with the meaning
of faith for centuries. McCain then retold a story we’ve all heard a
hundred times about a guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand.
Asked about his greatest moral failure, he cited his first marriage,
which ended in divorce. While saying it was his greatest moral failing,
he offered nothing in the way of explanation. Why not?
Throughout the evening, McCain chose to recite portions of his stump
speech as answers to the questions he was being asked. Why? He has
lived 71 years. Surely he has some thoughts on what it all means that
go beyond canned answers culled from the same speech he delivers every
day.
He was asked “if evil exists.” His response was to repeat
for the umpteenth time that Osama bin Laden is a bad man and he will
pursue him to “the gates of hell.” That was it.
He was asked to
define rich. After trying to dodge the question — his wife is worth a
reported $100 million — he finally said he thought an income of $5
million was rich.
One after another, McCain’s answers were shallow, simplistic, and trite. He showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has — virtually none.
Where are John McCain’s writings exploring the vexing moral issues of
our time? Where are his position papers setting forth his careful
consideration of foreign policy, the welfare state, education,
America’s moral responsibility in the world, etc., etc., etc.?
John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at
Annapolis. His father and grandfather were four star admirals in the
Navy. Some have suggested that might have played a role in McCain being
admitted. His academic record was awful. And it shows over and over
again whenever McCain is called upon to think on his feet.
He no
longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the “Straight
Talk Express” for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless
he’s reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer,
John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner
– short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets
in over his head very quickly.
I am sick and tired of the
president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is
too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual
curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look
into Vladmir Putin’s eyes and see into his soul.
George Bush’s record as a student, military man, businessman and leader
of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that
troubles me most is he seems content with himself.
He will leave
office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our
international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy
and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken
laws and promises, our citizens’ faith in our own country ripped to
shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic
one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has
been.
I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.
