Sunday Rant: Which Temper Tantrum Will Kill John McCain - a Drinking Game

Matt Latimer
Frank Rich
Dana Milbank



After watching John McCain going batshit over trying to single-handedly keep the repeal of DADT from happening, two types of consequences seem to be happening. First, more than a few Republicans are staring at Senator Ring Mood and are thanking their lucky stars that the man did not win the election. The man has become so bitter and filled with rage, that the mere mention of Barack Obama is enough to send him into fits of filibustering... If he can't ban the homos maybe he can nuke the russkies... I fully expect to see John have a heart attack while throwing one of his temper tantrums on the Senate floor...

The second consequence is that the conservative wackos are coming out of the woodwork, wanting to run for the Republican nomination. Case in point, is Mr John Bolton sending his alien feelers out. I don't know why people like this, who don't have a chance in hell of ever being elected to office think that now is their time. What drives them to seek out public humiliation? I really want to know, because when I was a sophomore in high school I ran for class president. The one person who I knew would win it if he chose to run, told me he wasn't interested, then turned around a decided he was going to after all. My best friend at the time became his campaign manager. Instead of dropping out, I decided to go through the whole process, which included getting heckled at the school rally for the candidates, losing by a large margin, and enduring the estrangement of people I thought were my friends. So, if you know why lemmings drive themselves off of cliffs, or why fools rush in where angels fear to tread, or why our silly arrogance thinks we can be a viable political candidate, for the sake of self-knowledge and enlightenment, please let me know...

Not that I'm feeling sympathetic for the suddenly prolific pundit on our foreign policy and national security: "The case for Bolton is a straightforward one: He would be the national security candidate. As he sees it, there wouldn’t be any meaningful competition for that designation." He's a hawk and he's so very wrong, and he's so very belligerent about it, that I wish that Gore Vidal were alive, 50 years younger, and up to debating again. Remember when Gore debated William F Buckley Jr and cleaned Buckley's clock so much that Buckley stormed off of the set? I was a kid, and had only watched Buckley on his television show, Firing Line, and was in awe of Buckley's sneering put-downs of his guests, that it was a revelation to watch someone do it back to William Buckley, who avoided Gore Vidal for the rest of his life... So yes, I yearn to see someone destroy John Bolton in the debatable way that he richly deserves. Ironically, either Hillary Clinton or Bill could do the job...

The next two years are going to be worse than all of the eight Bush years, combined. The seething new conservatism that is spawning these translucent demons, moving like wraiths of smoke through the corridors of power are seeking their revenge. They will not be content until the government has been whittled down to their size, or that everyone else in the country has the same misinterpretations of the constitution as they have, because ignorance loves company... We will have to wait until they wear themselves out or cannot endure the humiliation any longer; then we can look for candidates who know that conservatism is a set of philosophical constructs, not an evangelical religion...