My Final Word on John McCain

I'm done. *sigh*

I'll admit that I really want all this crap about McCain to be just that...crap. No, I have no interest in voting for him. I just want to be able to look at one Republican in Washington with respect. I've read some of his books. One, in particular was about courage & integrity. (I really liked it.) I've watched documentaries about him. (I liked those too!) Anyway, never let it be said that I will blindly cling to an idea. I've read. I've considered.

Here's a well-crafted commentary from George Will. McCain In A Glass House

My frustration with this situation is multi-faceted. If McCain is the lying hypocrite that we're reading about then he's truly no better than the great & lowly lying hypocrite that's at the helm right now. If McCain is simply naive in his choices of relationships, then he's truly no better than the guy that's been sailing us off-course for 8 years.

Note: I know that this is the complaint several of my friends have already made. I was trying to ignore you. I'm sorry.

But those points are moot. I never wanted him in the oval office anyway. I want & need leaders in Washington who fit the persona that he exemplified before the curtain came crashing down. Why?

I am a firm believer in the center. I might be a bleeding-heart liberal democrat, but deep down I believe that the safest place for our society is in the hands of the moderates. Extreme views & extreme leadership in either direction puts us off-kilter.

OK what I really want is a social progressive who's also a fiscal conservative, but dammit they don't exist outside of Aaron Sorkin's imagination.

I have watched the far right drag this country off-center for the last grueling 8 years. We need to get things back in line. My problem is that things have become so polarized that I don't see true voices of moderation and compromise. For a long time, McCain looked like one of those people. Joe Lieberman used to look like one of those people. (Before he went coo coo!) I've had a lot of hope for Lindsey Graham. Yes, I know he was on the Judiciary Committee that impeached Clinton, but he's also been a supporter of sensible immigration reform. Unfortunately, I think he's going to lose 2008 for that. Who will I have left? Joe Biden? Yeah, I like his take on a lot of issues, but he's always struck me as a few bricks shy of a load.

I know that a lot of people (and many of my friends) desire a massive pendulum swing to the far Left. Swinging the pendulum hard in the other direction just keeps the cycle going. Someone need to take the radical approach of slowing resting the pendulum in the middle!

We need to rediscover the true center. I think Obama is a step in the right direction. He has made several campaign promises that depend more on compromise and moderates than hard-liners and radical left-thinking. To do that, he'll need people working on both sides of the isle carrying out real debate and finding real solutions. I just don't see those people anymore.

And so that's probably why I was the lone liberal voice of support for John McCain...not as president, but as a leader and someone to respect. I'm not going to start badmouthing him, but I'm also not going to defend him anymore.