No Job for Mr. Nice Guy: An "election system that actively selects for egotistical megalomaniacs"

[DeepModem Mom]

WP op-ed: No Job for Mr. Nice Guy
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, June 24, 2008; Page A17

Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but in the past few days, I've felt overwhelmed by a tsunami of commentary, all of which purports to prove the fundamental nastiness of Barack Obama or, alternatively, the deep unlikability of John McCain. You thought our presidential candidates were nice guys, regular guys, guys with whom you'd like to sit down and have a beer? Guess what, lots of people are now telling me: They aren't.

Thus David Brooks of the New York Times has contrasted the warm and fuzzy Obama on our television screens with "Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who'd throw you under the truck for votes." The Daily Mail of London has called McCain a "self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled (first) wife." In recent months I've also read, or been told, that John McCain snubbed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life and is rude to his (second) wife in public; that Obama abandoned his beloved church to save his political skin and for similar reasons had some nasty friends in Chicago; that both candidates "flip-flop" on the issues nearest and dearest to them, merely in order to win votes. From whatever political quarter it comes, and regardless of whatever merit it may have, all of this commentary starts with the same assumption: The reader is meant to be shocked, shocked, that these two men -- men who have submitted themselves to months of brutal campaigning, men who have thrown their wives and families to the wolves, men who know they might at any second need to abandon their closest friends -- these two men are not, in fact, very nice people at all.

But why on Earth should anyone expect them to be? In its wisdom, the American nation has devised a presidential election system that actively selects for egotistical megalomaniacs: You simply cannot enter the White House if you aren't one. You might start out as an idealist, of course, and I would even give Obama and McCain the benefit of the doubt here. I'm sure both are patriots, both care about America, both want to make the world a better place.

But in order to become the candidate, each also had to make a series of utterly ruthless decisions, decisions that most nice guys would find unpalatable. I don't care what a helpful father Michelle says he is, there is absolutely no sense in which Obama's presidential campaign -- or, should it come to that, Obama's presidency -- is good for Obama's children. Neither is there a scenario under which Cindy McCain, who always looks profoundly uncomfortable in the limelight, is ever going to relax and enjoy her husband's golden retirement years. Anyone who was ever closely associated with either candidate is now at risk of unpleasant media exposure. No one who works for either of these men right now has job security, and no one who knows them can expect any favors....

***

...(W)hatever their many good qualities, both are self-centered, driven, ambitious, calculating, manipulative politicians -- because they have to be. That's what it takes to be president of the United States, and we might as well get used to it now.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/23/AR2008062301827.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[maxsolomon]

1. Bush is a Sociopathic Narcissist.

McCain & Obama do not rise to that level. In fact, Obama shows an ability to reflect, self-criticize, & correct that I have never seen as an adult in an American President.

I think "History's Greatest Monster" Jimmy Carter, who actually admitted to noticing that other women were attractive, posessed similar traits. But comparing the 2 can only hurt BHO.

Calling BHO an "Egotistical Megalomaniac" on par with McCain or Bush is a cynical strategy meant to debase our candidate.

Screw that, Anne Applebaum.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. I think there's a difference, too. I think one point that's legit, though...

is that we can't expect perfection from our guy. Nobody's perfect, especially, as she notes, at this level in the political game.

And as for Bush -- well, don't get me started. In the piece, Applebaum says she thinks one reason he was "elected" was because people THOUGHT he was a nice guy.