McCain’s Brain: Unfit For Command, or Merely Incontinent?

Just about every day brings another MSM newsbite about Senator McCain's latest bizarre and idiosyncratic departure from reality. Sadly for the Senator - and more sadly for America - the presumptive GOP nominee for Commander-in-Chief suffers from brain impairment so severe that his military peers publicly warn us he is unfit for command.

When so many struggle with basic literacy, much less biomedical literacy, I've give up expecting our incurious, superficial MSM to see the pattern, much less report on it. The pattern's quite obvious - as Howie Klein pointed out yesterday: in the UK's Financial Times, Professor Anatol Lieven was quite clear in describing McCain's obvious impairment:

...Mr McCain's policies would not be so worrying were it not for his notorious quickness to fury in the face of perceived insults to himself or his country. Even Thad Cochran, a fellow Republican senator, has said: "I certainly know no other president since I've been here who's had a temperament like that."

OK - so what does some ivory tower type like Cambridge Professor Lieven know? He must be a pacifist peace-nik, right? Uh - not so much. He was "editor of Strategic Comments, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. There he also specialized in the former Soviet Union and in aspects of contemporary warfare." Hmm. Not exactly a job for flower children.

When Mark Benjamin researched his piece on McCain's temperament earlier this month, he wasn't asking flower children, either.

In interviews with Salon this week, several experienced military officers said McCain draws mixed reviews among military leaders, and they expressed serious doubts about whether McCain has the right temperament to be the next president and commander in chief. Some expressed more confidence in Obama, citing his temperament as an asset.

It is not difficult in Washington to find high-level military officials who have had close encounters with John McCain's temper, and who find it worrisome .....the concern is that McCain has, at times, come across as out of control. It is difficult to find current or former officers willing to describe those encounters in detail on the record. That's because, by and large, those officers admire McCain. But that doesn't mean they want his finger on the proverbial button, and they are supporting Clinton or Obama instead.

I've never served, so how can I know what constitutes fitness for Commander-in-Chief? But these senior officers sure think they know - and they know McCain's Brain is not fit to serve:

"I like McCain. I respect McCain. But I am a little worried by his knee-jerk response factor," said retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004 and is now campaigning for Clinton. "I think it is a little scary. I think this guy's first reactions are not necessarily the best reactions. I believe that he acts on impulse."

Well, if McCain's Brain is "a little scary" for a Major General, what level of terror ought it provoke in those whose jobs don't include "people trying to kill me with guns and bombs and missiles"?