McCain is losing it - his temper (and the race?)

McCain Increasingly More Unhinged In Denver Speech

By: Nicole Belle www.crooksandliars.com

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I don’t know about you, but I’m a little worried that McCain might stroke out before November. He’s definitely having a much harder time keeping his infamous temper in check. In fact, yesterday at his appearance in Columbus, Ohio, McCain completely snubbed a Wall Street Journal reporter (watch Lindsey Graham’s face as he does it–hilarious!). Today, in Denver, you could sense McCain’s rage was just bubbling under the surface. (The Colorado Independent liveblogged the event) I get the distinct impression that he’s no longer got his heart in it. It must irk him that Obama drew more than 200K yesterday and according to the press, only 500 showed up to see him in Denver–the smattering of applause sounds more like 50–and even with those diehards, there was dead silence during much of his attacks on Obama.

Like every speech of McCain’s lately, his confusing verb tenses claim that we have won and will win, have succeeded and will succeed and yet he’s still able to predict “defeat” from Barack Obama’s position, despite all this winning and success. It’s a stunning psychic ability for McSame as he then says that the troops will come home during “the next president’s first term.” Isn’t that what Obama promised as well? McSame actually told Wolf Blitzer that he thought Obama’s 16 months was a pretty good timetable. Confused yet? As Logan points out, McCain says that when he brings the troops home, they’re staying home. What does he plan on doing in Afghanistan? Those permanent bases in Iraq? Is this yet another flip-flop?

Even Joe Klein, who has always taken his status as a Beltway Bubble Villager so seriously, is finding McCain unhinged:

This is the ninth presidential campaign I’ve covered. I can’t remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.[..]

The reality is that neither Barack Obama nor Nouri al-Maliki nor most anybody else believes that the Iraq war can be “lost” at this point. The reality is that no matter who is elected President, we are looking at a residual U.S. force of 30-50,000 by 2011 (a year ahead of the previous schedule). The reality is that McCain should be proud that he helped salvage a disastrous situation by pushing the counterinsurgency plan. It’s something to run on. But, at this point, McCain must sense that it’s not a winning hand. Obama, the poker player, has drawn to an inside straight: the Iraqis favor his plan over McCain’s long-term bases. That must be galling. But it’s no excuse to pop off the way McCain did. It was, shockingly, unpresidential.

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