John McCain: The Candidate of the Infantile Id

Here’s the thing I can’t get past. John McCain is a screeching prima donna who seems to neither know nor care about the ramifications of his actions. By throwing the question of tonight’s debate into turmoil, the Senator has disrupted the lives of thousands of people. All of the journalists and tech people traveling to Oxford are left with now-worthless (and presumably non-refundable) plane tickets on their hands and literal tons of stranded broadcast equipment. All the people who bought tickets to the event are potentially S.O.L., and the University of Mississippi is screwed out of millions of dollars and a year and a half of planning.

As the podiums were receiving a final polish, exasperated officials from the university took to the airwaves to say that they had been preparing for this big event for 18 months, and had invested $5.5 million (£3 million) in it – a figure that people here found easier to get a handle on than the $700 billion being demanded by President Bush to rescue Wall Street.


At trestle tables volunteers sat ready to hand out 3,000 press credentials. Roads throughout the area had been closed down. The Secret Service checked for bombs. In Oxford’s town square, around its Confederate war memorial, shop windows were decorated with “Debate ’08!” The headline in The Daily Mississippian read, above a picture of Mr McCain: “Will he show?”Assuming that he will, their encounter will be a critical moment.

These were the same issues that came up during Hurricane Gustav when Johnny Crash thought maybe he’d just hold the RNC a couple weeks later than originally planned. He’s making his decisions based on his own personal whims and the worst kind of political brinksmanship, never mind all the “little people” who are left to run around behind him like ants in a kicked anthill.


This is exactly why McCain is so uniquely unqualified for the presidency. His narcissism and chronic recklessness would be fine job qualifications for, say, Town Drunk or lead guitarist in a glam rock band, but when it comes to making decisions for more people than you can count on your fingers, Grampa McCrashypants is just plain out of his depth. I can only pray that our great nation doesn’t end up as just another pile of smoking ruin on the man’s already impressive résumé of crashes, disasters, and cluster-f*&ks.