This morning I was thinking about the events of last night, particularly John McCain's blatantly obvious animosity against Barack Obama during last night's debate. Here are two ambitious men, who have reached the final round of a contest to become what is considered the most powerful political office in the world.
Yet one of them is so filled with anger that he can't even bring himself to shake the other's hand after a spirited discussion of the issues and concerns in our country, and on several occassions refuses to even say his name.
What has caused this man, John McCain, to reach this breaking point?
Let's step back into history for a moment. McCain ran in 2000, when he was a quite youthful 66 years old. Years of ambition had culminated in this run, and after the field shook out his only remaining obstacle was Bush, who was a powerless governor with only his family name to run on. Things got down and nasty real quick thanks to Karl Rove. McCain had the momentum after winning New Hampshire, but the South Carolina Primary is considered to be the turning point. Racist push-polling there gave Bush a huge win, and McCain exploded on Bush for it. Of course, it wasn't the end of the Bush-Rove machine, and they went on from there to take most of the rest of the states to get the nod, and eventually the Presidency.
So McCain went back to the Senate. He watched from his office in the Capitol as the person who beat him to the big finish line, his big finish line, turned out to be a numbnuts moron mommas-boy. He watched from his leather-upholstered seat in the Senate, where he's so broken that he lets himself out of the well-honed "moderate" stance he thought he had. He stood up and spoke out a couple times against that upstart that took his dream, but that's the extent of it. By ideology and herd mentality, he participates in the demolition of this country's moral, Constitutional and economic foundations. He is no longer the Maverick, but clings to the mantle he made for himself so long ago. He then watches as the tide turns, and his party's fate leads them to the gutter and the exit door of the halls of power.
And then he comes back, six years later, addled by the years, illnesses, the tortured memories of his captivity that he forces himself to relive in order to fuel his ambition, and the overwhelming fury over the chance that was stolen from him by this... this fucking idiot. Frustrated beyond comprehension, just like all of us, at the absolute incompetence that has ruled millions of lives during the past eight years. And he watches the country pass him by, mainly because of that idiot's legacy and his blind and defeated complicity, for someone so full of energy and youth and promise and intelligence and sheer force of will that the country acts with a popular uprising not seen in decades.
Many nights this year, he stands there on the stage in front of crowds who have come to hear him speak about why he should get one more chance at that dream he's been chasing for years. The anger rises in him day after day, to the point where he can't even say his opponent's name, or even shake his hand after a spirited discussion of the country's issues and concerns. The shadow has now become a shell.
In closing, I don't think John McCain is a racist. I think he's just another victim of the Bush Legacy - a man whose best chance to satisfy his greatest ambition was spirited away by a imbecile, and whose second best chance happened after his own time had run out.
I can't forgive him for letting his demons rule him, and in turn rule us. I will however pity the man. As we've all been saying on this website for years, things could have been quite different without Bush.