Mccain Moment

This week, John McCain gave a speech for the ages - the Dark Ages. He offered up the Right's boilerplate complaints about activist judges -- ignoring the fact that the majority of federal judges are GOP appointees, as are 7 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices. Or maybe he was having another McCain moment. Across the aisle, while Hillary's chances of winning teetered between none and "What are you smoking?" Obama played it cool, allowing Hillary the space to face the inevitable with dignity and on her own terms -- the political equivalent of "it isn't you, it's me." (BTW: Happy Mother's Day to all HuffPost mothers!)

McCain may not have a clue about what's going on in Iraq, but he's certainly seen those right track/wrong track polling numbers. That's why he's suddenly running as fast as he can from the Bush presidency.

It only makes sense that the media have focused non-stop on the looming threat of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago while paying scant attention to the fact that the presumptive Republican nominee for president apparently doesn't have a clue about what's going on in the Middle East. And with the U.S. death toll hitting 4,000, John McCain's tenuous grasp on what is happening in the region becomes all the more worthy of attention. READ MORE John McCain, Iraq, and the Eyewitness Fallacy: John McCain's glowing post-visit assessment of conditions in Iraq, and Hillary Clinton's hyperbolically harrowing recollections of her 1996 trip to Bosnia both stand as shining examples of what the British writer Malcolm Muggeridge dubbed "the eyewitness fallacy." In a brilliant essay, Muggeridge described public figures of strong conviction throughout history -- many of them greatly admired and well-meaning -- who, in eyewitness accounts, saw what they wanted to see, and became what they wanted to be. READ MORE

Those of us who have watched our parents grow old understand that mental changes, if not actual decline is a familiar part of aging, and that such "McCain Moments" are not uncommon.