McCain's Ultimate Test of Character

[alcibiades_mystery]

This is serious shit they're stirring up. They can't win with it, but they can tear down any thin veneer of civil society in the rigorous political-philosophical sense.

The moderate GOPers are abandoning the McCain/Palin Demagogue Freak Show. The fringe lunatics of the right are on their own. The only problem is that we know exactly how they behave when they're on their own. Ask the people of Oklahoma City whether the fringe lunatics of the radical right know how to live in civil society in a democracy.

McCain has a responsibility here to tell his people that they are straying beyond the pale of acceptable social behavior. It is his ultimate test of character: will he put country and patriotism and the well-being of Americans above his own political ambition?

He should dress down the swaying, frothing mob and remind them what a democracy is.

[redqueen]

1. He should... but he sold off the last shred of his dignity some time ago.

"Country first"... how tragically ironic.

[jojo54]

2. He's lost already and he knows it.

Now he's just grabbing for straws.

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Yes, but we're beyond that now

he has to act not as a candidate, but as a leader of one group that is verging dangerously close to political violence in a time of economic peril.

He has to rein them in and quick. The election is essentially over, but there is much much more at stake if he does not act to pull them back into the fold of civil society.

[demo dutch]

4. He's destroying his political career & legacy in the process

[TwilightGardener]

5. He already failed, by starting this shit. He can't redeem himself, he set off something ugly

and dangerous, and is trying to ruin the reputation and good name of a Senate colleague. His character is now solidified--he is an awful man.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. He can't save his career, but he can stop the nonsense

and save something more important.

[trof]

7. Exactly. K&R

[SDJay]

8. Too late, IMHO.

Actions define us more than words, and his actions have led to this. Failure to act counts just as much. He's defined himself as scum, his legacy as scum and his effect on the political discourse on the United States' democratic system as pure fucking scum. Too freakin' bad for him, but I won't ooze one iota of sympathy for a man who's basically evil. He tried to be Rove, but isn't nearly smart enough to pull it off, fucked it up like everything else he's tried on this campaign, and the price he now gets to pay is his eternal reputation. History will no longer be kind to him, and that's quite proper.

[jacksonian]

9. But McCain has already lost the crowd

he should still do the right thing. But why those people are saying what they are has a lot to do with Sarah Palin and her "star power", and we need to hear the same level restraint and civility from her at her rallies.