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McCAIN’S BANE: ANACHRONISM

President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain are a generation apart in age, but they both seem to be stuck in early 20th century. Although this piece has age references, pointedly, it is not ageist. This writer is almost ten year McCain’s senior.

Both Bush and McCain appear to be affable on a personal basis, but their lack of intellect and curiosity about the quotidian quick-step* and the time-space continuum are dangerous to you and me when they pose as national leaders. It is amazing that, with all of the talent extant in this country that these two dinosaurs should have bubbled to the surface in the tar pits of the Grand Old Party. In contrast, it is true that Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda operate from caves and espouse distorted ideas rooted in the 7th century; however, they plan and execute their nefarious outrages with state-of-the-art concepts and equipment!

The candidate-capacity level in this campaign is so uneven that the only way McCain could possibly win is that the “Bradley Effect,” ominously come into play in the solitude of the voting booth upon that nerve-numbing November day. As the campaign rolls on, it is not the eruption of the McCain temper that should concern us; rather, it should be the steady revelation of the McCain absence with regard to things temporal, to wit:

• Shockingly, John McCain does not know how to turn on a computer! This writer precedes McCain by a decade, has been computer-literate for 30 years—and is not postulating for control of a globe that is spinning so fast, technologically, that not even Superman could, as Omar Khayyam would put it, “…lure it back to cancel half a line.”

• In an overseas press conference, McCain had to be corrected by traveling companion Joseph Lieberman on his confusing Iranian Shias with Iraqi Sunnis. He would still probably label those Iranian “Persians” as “Arabs.” (This is not a cheap attempt to profit upon the Rubaiyat mention.)

• McCain keeps referring to a country that has not existed for 15 years. Everyone is aware that what was formerly known as Czechoslovakia has been reduced to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Is there no one on the McCain staff alert enough to keep him from repeating this gaffe?

• McCain naively disavowed any expertise in economic matters. Curiously, when his economic advisor, Dr. Phil Graham, accused us of whining about things that contribute to the collapse of the Bush Administration, McCain threatened to banish him to the ambassadorship of Belorusse. (I am sure that was a staff concoction, designed to minimize the Czechoslovakia goof.)

John McCain is fortunate that Barak Obama has not (as yet) taken him up on that joint appearance before town meetings. Alone on the platform, McCain merely projects the image of a kindly, avuncular soul who is obviously unaware of those new-fangled objects dangling about him. Standing next to the brilliant, hip, on-top-of-it-all, show-boating Obama, McCain disappears completely.

A principal talking point of the Republicans is to paint Barak as an “elitist.” They miss the mark: He is palpably superior.

“Tempus fugit” is a bitch!

*quotidian quick-step - this writer’s coinage:
The cumulative effect of rapidly moving, everyday events.