Well George Will, I'd give Fred Astaire nuclear weapons before John McCain

That's not even a question.

Somebody might want to answer why you would want a guy who is so unhinged that he tried to rough up an associate of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua while they were in a room full of his friends with guns? Is that "presidential?" Do you think John McCain will solve the Arabic-Israeli conflict by acting like that?

Does a guy who thinks it is funny to sing "Bomb Iran" or to make an assertion about killing Iraninan civilians, who are overwhelmingly pro-American, sound like somebody YOU would want to have nuclear weapons? I shudder at the thought.

See it would be one thing to be dense. Surely McCain not knowing how Social Security worked or asserting that the Sunni and Shia have no history of violence in the region, well that's standard politician ignorance. Lots of politicians get where they are by managing to sound and look good enough to sham people into thinking they know something. McCain isn't the first or last politician to pretend he knows what he's talking about without actually knowing what he's talking about.

But the real problem, is he's unhinged and dangerous. His stroll in the Baghdad Market and how he tried to make that into something it wasn't, that was insane. What kind of person walks around someplace protected by soldiers, tanks and Blawk Hawk helicopters and, for political reasons, tries to make it sound like it was as safe as a market back in the USA? What kind of person continues to say he wants to boot Russia out of the G8? That's not even a rational idea. Nobody wants to do that, the USA doesn't have the power to do it, and it wouldn't make sense to do it, but McCain somehow does? Even his campaign says he doesn't speak for the campaign when he says something like that. McCain sounds like he thinks the Cold War isn't over. That's a serious problem. Does that not give you pause at the fitness of this guy to be president?

You know, McCain's Republican colleague in the Senate, Thad Cochran, has famously said that the thought of McCain being president sends a chill down his spine.

Mine, too.

on edit:

Typos and grammar will kill ya.

You have put the real problem with McCain succinctly---I can't even see how die-hard Republicans would want to vote for him. If they spend a minute watching Bob Barr videos they'd realize how sane and rational the Libertarian candidate is in comparison. With your permission, I'd like to use your arguments presented here to try and convince GOP acquaintances who will never vote Democratic to vote Libertarian instead.

Just make sure the check is in the mail. :)

No thanks, I'm honored that you got something out of it you'd want to use.

Barr was a House Manager in the impeachment of Clinton, that was a goofy set of circumstances, and even a guy like that can grow and move on and get out of that stuff. McCain has no ability for growth. That's why everything he's ever done, like say McCain-Feingold, that might have been a good idea, he's turned against it while running for president. McCain never had the capacity or curiousity to learn how to use a computer. Now that would be different if he wasn't in Congress for 25 years and wasn't running for a president of the most powerful country in the history of the world. My dad doesn't know how to use a computer, but he's a farmer, he never sat in an office in his life. McCain has no excuse to be that ignorant and to lack even a modicum of innovation and imagination. And that sort of thing sums him up in a nutshell. :)

debates, without saying that he helped Reagan prep with Carter's stolen briefing books.

That's the type of guy he is. He helped Reagan prep for those debates and then afterward went on television and bragged about how Reagan won those debates etc. Gee, maybe a little bit of an ethical problem there? But guys like George Will think stuff like that is fine. He's a really, really serious, credible guy. I mean he wears glasses, loves baseball and uses big words while writing fruity columns that are barely sensical because his writing style is made to sound intelligent without getting a cogent point across.