John McCain's Judgment: Not As Good As Advertised

            John McCain has made his judgment a staple of his presidential campaign.  He says he has the experience and solid judgment to lead America through crisis times, while Barack Obama does not.  Well, let’s take a close look at some of Senator McCain’s recent judgments.

            First, he selected the grievously unqualified Sarah Palin to be his vice-presidential running mate.  At first, this selection looked like a political master stroke.  Palin became the darling of conservatives and energized the Republican base voters.  But as we get to know Palin better, the lunacy of his choice becomes clear.  I hope some of her supporters watched Palin’s interview with CBS News anchor, Katie Couric.  In that interview Palin bragged of her foreign policy expertise based on the fact that her state, Alaska, borders Canada and Russia.  Asked why she thought that was a basis for foreign policy experience, she said, “We have trade delegations to those countries” (countries to which she has never traveled in any official context).   In another part of the interview, Palin was asked to comment on the Bailout deal that has made so much news in the past week.  It was clear from her response that she barely knew what the legislation under consideration was or how it impacted our economy.  This was a pitiful response and totally ignorant response.  All of this, of course, reflects on the judgment of John McCain.  If he gets elected, McCain will have placed some one so miserably unready for high office one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the leadership of the most powerful nation on this planet.  If that does not simply terrify you, then my friends you are just not thinking.

            As we all know, America is experiencing an economic crisis of towering proportions.  Congress was heard at work hammering out a very difficult piece of legislation to ameliorate the crisis.  They almost had a deal worked out.  Then John McCain panicked.  He put his campaign on hold, flew off to Washington, got into the middle of those very delicate negotiations, and almost blew up the deal legislators were making.  Does this show good judgment?  Again, as with his V.P. choice, McCain placed his campaign for President ahead of the needs of the nation.  If this is his idea of calm leadership, in a crisis, we need to look elsewhere for a president. 

            The thing that made him look most silly was his threat to cancel the presidential debate.  He said he would not debate, until there was a deal on the economic bailout package.  Then he got enough feedback from fellow Republicans to see how his backing out made him look and what a really stupid move that was.  So, he flipped on his threat not to participate and decided to debate even though there is not economic-package deal yet.  However, with McCain out of Washington, there is a chance they will soon get a deal.  Canceling the debate then backing down and deciding to do it, is a gigantic political blunder.  Doing this made him look weak and indecisive.  If McCain had any chance of winning the presidency, I believe he blew it with this decision.  It seems he was against the debate before he was for it.  When the analysis of this campaign is written, this move will be seen as the death blow for his campaign and will go down in history as one of the worst political blunders of all time. 

            McCain’s major asset, as seen by the American people, his experience and good judgment has been put to the test in the past several weeks.  It has come up wanting.  If he is to have any chance of salvaging his campaign, he will have to give a world-class performance in tonight’s debate.