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McCain Tries to Dodge Questions About Problem Temper |
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It’s nice to see McCain finally forced to play a little defense, poorly. During a Sunday interview show, George Stephanopoulos was apparently shamed into asking McCain at least one or two real questions about the senator’s problem temper (though he failed to ask the obvious follow-ups). McCain variously tried to dismiss the stories of his screaming, cursing at, and scaring the hell out of colleagues as old news, exaggerations, lies, or the result of his”passion“.
My first question is: which is it? Is McCain saying that his fellow Republicans who were taken aback by his temper are liars? But that’s not the real point: McCain’s goal was to distract from the real issue– that several prominent Republicans have questioned McCain’s fitness to serve as president.Â
Is McCain claiming that former Sen. Bob Smith was misquoted when he said that McCain’s temper “should disqualify him” from the White House? Is he disputing Sen. Thad Cochran’s quoted comment that the thought of McCain as president “sends a cold chill down [his] spine.?”:
There is nothing ambiguous about the conclusions Republican senators, party activists, and an Arizona newspaper have reached about McCain. They all question his fitness to serve as president.
I can understand why McCain doesn’t want to talk about the real story. I hope that journalists will get better at asking him about this story and won’t let him get away with suggesting that the key facts may be in dispute, There is nothing disputed about what two senators, the former Arizona Republican party executive director, and a Republican state senator from Arizona have concluded about McCain, and he won’t get off the hook this easily.Â
At the same time that he’s failing to answer questions about his prblem temper, McCain is slinging mud at Barack Obama over the phony William Ayers “story”. I don’t thnk that Obama needs to stoop to McCain’s level to point out McCain’s hypocrisy, but I do think the media needs to ask McCain about his own connections to unsavory characters.
