The Growing Irrelevance of John McCain

John McCain

I used to respect John McCain.  Not now.  The version of John McCain which played out during the election campaign was in stark contrast to the McCain who ran for president in 2000.  Back then his words appeared to be more than mere campaign rhetoric.  In the last campaign he came off as a confused old man lacking direction who was willing to say anything to gain the upper hand.

His selection of the pathetic Sarah Palin as his VP pick sort of did it for me.  Behind in the polls at the time, he desperately reached into his grabbag of tricks and chose a totally unqualified candidate hoping that her strict conservative record and the fact she was a female would rejuvenate his failing campaign.  It didn’t.  Instead it damaged him further.

I did regain a bit of respect for the man on election night when he gave his concession speech.  It was one of grace and class and spoke of support for the new president.  I recall thinking at the time that if one is going to lose at anything in life, McCain was showing us how to do in the right way.

And now, we’re back to the campaign version of John McCain…and it’s ugly.

His opposition to the economic recovery plan, while understandable, has verged on the ridiculous.   In declaring that the current bill is what amounts to “generational theft”, he proposed his own package which was comprised almost exclusively of tax cuts.  He also voted for a Republican alternative bill which would have cut taxes totalling $2.5 trillion over a period of 10 years.  Nice.  I imagine there’s no “generational theft” in that proposal, right?

Some have claimed that McCain has turned into an angry old man – unhappy with having lost the election, unhappy with the electorate and unhappy with what he considered unfair press coverage.

What it all amounts to is that John McCain is becoming more irrelevant by the day…and that’s too bad.  He served his country well but it might be time to go.