Feels like we're all back in preschool. Watching our financial institutions fall like dominoes. Or like Humpty Dumpty. Sat on a wall, had a great fall, all the king's horses and all the king's men trying to put him together again.
A nursery rhyme seems appropriate at a time when a presidential candidate acts like a willful child testing his parent's limits, stamping his foot and refusing to come to dinner. When the man in the Oval Office is regarded as a clown by much of the world. When a vice presidential candidate spends days cramming for a big test-- and comes out sounding less informed than a middle-schooler. Our world has become that screwy. Are we in the Twilight Zone? Or just back in preschool?
To deal with a willful child who stamps his foot, childcare experts would advise parents to remain calm and refuse to take the bait. Like Obama did. Which proves that we've all got it backwards. With all the fuss over McCain's age and experience vs. Obama's youth--it's pretty clear who is the mature grownup and who is the spoiled child.
The childcare experts would also remind us that actions speak louder than words. During his short tenure as a presidential candidate, McCain's actions speak loud and clear. Beginning with his choice of who to place a heartbeat away; his refusal to tell us how close that heartbeat might be by releasing his medical records; his transparent stunts one after another from the hurricane in Louisiana to the hurricane on Wall Street---flip flops, gaffes, outright lies, constant shooting from the hip that miss the target by a mile but hit America in the heart.
Psychologists might even agree that John McCain was right in asking for a timeout. He needs one. I almost could get myself to feel sorry for the guy. If he'd do something that makes sense. Right now what makes the most sense, if the United States is ever going to regain our footing at home and abroad, is for McCain to focus his energy and fighting spirit where it would help the most---fighting for his health after four malignant melanomas.
The rest of us need to get busy trying to help Barack Obama pick up the pieces and put Humpty Dumpty back together again.