Obama vs. McCain: Wannabe vs Has Been

So this morning The New York Times runs an article designed to help the reader see that hypocrisy is simply human nature, common to politicians and private citizens alike. I stopped reading it part way through. I should know this already. Then a friend sent me a link to the same article and I went back to see if I could suffer through reading it to the end. I couldn't. So I scanned it, instead, and gleaned some small satisfaction in doing so.

I thought of Obama. I've seen so much change in the candidate since he won the Democratic nomination that I can't believe he's the same guy. He still sounds good on the stump, but for some reason he's taken to wearing the flag pin he said didn't make him a patriot! Of course, that's nothing compared with his decision to fund his campaign with private contributions, when he said he would compete with public financing. Makes as good economic sense as saying, "I changed my mind."

These things, great and small, show me he's slipping into the great morass like every other studied politician. And the answers these guys give to easy questions, I just can't take it! For example, yesterday's BIG NEWS was that a former general Wesley Clark said being a POW doesn't qualify McCain to be president. So, what's not to like about that truth? There are a lot of ex-POWs, and that simple fact doesn't qualify them, either!!! Why are talking points so lame? Don't commentators have more substantial things to explicate?

Is the Fourth Estate growing cataracts? I sense we are among the blind leading the blind. Clark did not one question McCain's war record or his patriotrism. He was just saying that one's POW experience alone is not qualification to be president. Who can't figure that out? Just as being a mulatto, tall, thin Harvard grad doesn't qualify you, either. The candidate neither understood nor defended the former general who was doing him a service by discounting what will likely be one of McCain's planks leading up to November. This is where intelligence makes a difference. We are witnessing a battle of a wannabe without experience against a has-been who needs a turncoat to tell him who our allies are.

What's going on? Is there no loyalty anymore? Are people afraid to speak the truth, the way they've been cowed into political correctness? Are politicans so afraid of losing votes that they lose sight of logic and reason?

Footnote -- In Obama's speech on patriotism yesterday in Independence, Missouri, the candidate said "as we begin our 4th century as a nation..." As I understand it, we're just over 30 years into our 3rd century as a nation. Are we not going to sweat the small stuff?