'Daredevil' McCain's All-Too-Clear 'Hubris and Irresponsibility'
"With a single stroke last
week, McCain demonstrated that his apparent prudence was just a shell, and that
his penchant for risk-taking and all-or-nothing gambles would provide the real background
music for his presidency."
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin holds her four-month-old son Trig, after her speech at the Republican National Convention, Sept. 3 ...
We knew from his
biography that John McCain was a daredevil: since his childhood days, his
mother Roberta assures us, rebellion and risk have been his elixirs of life. So
it's all the more impressive to have seen the discipline McCain has shown during
the recent phase of his campaign. Completely against his own inclinations, the Republican
candidate strictly adhered to the message designated by his campaign
strategists. Just like a finely-polished right-wing Republican, McCain remained
consistently "on message," as one says in the jargon of American
politics. Journalists pined for the old free spirit, but the tough campaign
strategy paid off in the polls. McCain's deficit in regard to his Democratic
opponent, Barack Obama, shrank, and the prospect for Republican success on November
4th no longer so seemed a phantasm.
With a single stroke last
week, McCain demonstrated that his apparent prudence was just a shell, and that
his penchant for risk-taking and all-or-nothing gambles would provide the real background
music for his presidency. To nominate Governor Sarah Palin as a candidate for
the vice presidency, someone almost completely unknown outside Alaska and inexperienced
in foreign policy - is so bold, that some well-known Republican commentators set
aside campaign solidarity and harshly criticized McCain, as if they were advocating
for the Democrats.
PRESIDENT REAGAN'S SPEECHWRITER PEGGY NOONAN ON PALIN
As far as campaign tactics
are concerned, with the choice of Palin, McCain has locked himself out of accusing
the charismatic Obama of lacking political experience - a criticism that was at
the core of his previous campaign strategy. Instead, the senator intends to win
by attracting those voters who primarily see Washington as a Gomorrah
[reference to the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah ],
and who consider Palin a great choice because she embodies their image of the super-active,
happy-go-lucky American wife and mother.
Palin should enthuse
Christians, hunters and anti-abortionists, and may yet obtain the votes of disappointed
Hillary Clinton supporters who can't get over the fact that once again, Democrats
have nominated two male candidates at the top of the ticket. For war hero
McCain, the brave Marine pilot from the American upper class, Palin represents
a counterpart from the middle class. Especially in regard to White American
voters, it is the same attractive force that Obama has exerted in his campaign,
and which has mobilized Black voters like never before.
But Palin's nomination is still
an enormous risk - and it shows that McCain is ready to ignore the advice of
experts, shock his supporters and put everything on the line. Election
researcher Charlie Cook, one of the best analysts of American politics, summed
it up this way: "The decision for Palin was either brilliant or insane."
If Palin falters in the televised debate with her counterpart Joe Biden, who is
highly experienced in foreign policy, it could in the extreme case cost McCain the
presidency. There is an old rule of thumb that the secondary election campaign for
the vice presidency plays very little role in the decision of voters. But this
may offer McCain little protection, if for example, Democrats can prove that
the Alaska governor has serious foreign policy shortcomings and that by
choosing her, McCain is gambling with the national security of the United
States.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
THE DAILY SHOW ON REPUBLICAN VP PICK PALIN
McCain's hubris and
irresponsibility are already evident. Hubris, because only his belief in his own
immortality over the next four years justifies his decision to choose a vice president
that, other than two years as Alaska governor, has only the experience as the
mayor of an Anchorage suburb. Irresponsibility, because U.S. Presidents are
always in great danger of being assassinated, as was shown by the killing of
John F. Kennedy, but also by the attempt on Ronald Reagan. This occurred on March
30, 1981, 69 days after Reagan took office, and it almost cost the former
President his life. Imagine a President McCain being shot on the evening of the
March 30, 2009 - with the world waking up the following day with a President
Palin, who less than two years ago said in an interview about the Iraq War: "I’ve
been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war
in Iraq."
One must go back decades in American
history to stumble upon a Vice President as poorly qualified for office as Palin.
When the father of the current U.S. President, George H.W. Bush, designated lawmaker
Dan Quayle as his vice president-designate, he was harshly criticized due to
his lack in foreign policy experience - even though Quayle had already spent
twelve years in the U.S. Congress. Palin has particularly distinguished herself
in the battle against corruption. And it is a beautiful irony of history that Richard
Nixon, because of corruption in office, had to force out his deputy, Spiro
Agnew, who was the last U.S. Vice
President to enter office with so little prior experience.
That which has been published
in the United States over the past few days about Palin's family and personal
life - over and above her views on politics and foreign policy, puts the
intellectual condition of the U.S. and America's media in a very unflattering
light. The first debate between the two candidates was moderated by a preacher,
and they had to discuss and answer questions on their attitude toward faith and
how they would deal with biblical evil. Meanwhile, a politician could become
president in five months whose position on war and peace is largely a mystery, and
all that is being discussed is the impact of her daughter's pregnancy. The
country in which all this is happening is the most powerful on earth. But how much
longer?
*Thomas Klau is an FTD
columnist and heads the Paris Office of the European Council on Foreign
Relations.
