YET ANOTHER REASON THAT McCAIN SHOULDN’T, AND WON’T, BE PRESIDENT

9/9/07

This is a note I sent to Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman. I sent it in response to his 9/9/07 column regarding John McCain’s age’s impact on his qualifications to be president. In my opinion, Steve is perhaps the most insightful columnist in the print media:

The point you make regarding John McCain’s age is probably right; no one at the age of 71 should be considering an 8 year, or even a 4 year, gig as president. We saw the consequences of advanced age for a president’s fitness for his job with Ronald Reagan. He was fine, well, okay maybe, at 69 in 1980, but his White House years were not good to him. He seemed more withdrawn and even less intense about his work as the years passed. His second term especially was a time of vacillation. Given Mr. McCain’s propensity for being a more “hands-on” guy than Mr. Reagan, the years will probably be even more unforgiving should he somehow become president.

Further, most anyone who has observed Mr. McCain in action has noticed that he often appears to not be “all there.” The expression “deer in the headlights,” while first widely applied to the richly deserving Dan Quayle, more aptly describes Mr. McCain. When confronted with surprise questions, he often comes out with ridiculous non-sequiturs and smug references to his military service. He is rarely challenged on this tendency, however, because most observers are afraid of the ubiquitous retort from the McCain camp that challenging him on anything is dishonoring his military service. Now that he is under the pressure of a presidential campaign, this tendency to lose touch is coming up with regularity. Witness the “Bomb, bomb Iran” idiocy and the case you cited of Mr. McCain’s calling the youngster with the temerity to question him about his age a “little jerk.”

My first response to your column, however, was not the above, but, rather “Who cares?” McCain is, thankfully, so far out of the race that whether he is too old for the job is moot.

My second response was that I didn’t want to agree with you on the age issue because you could just as well have written a column asking if Ron Paul, who is a year older than John McCain and who now runs almost as well as Mr. McCain in the polls, is too old to be president. Unfortunately, if your conclusion regarding John McCain is correct, it is probably also correct for Mr. Paul. This is indeed regrettable in the latter case. It is even more regrettable that the question is equally moot.