TPM has put together quite a clip collection, showing John McCain, during the campaign, as rather “dazed and confused.” It’s definitely worth watching.
Now, the clip shows a series of gaffes, mistakes, and incidents even Fox News describes as “senior moments,” and it’s pretty devastating. Age aside, McCain really does frequently come across as not especially sharp.
Ezra watched the same clip, and noted that it might not be especially fair to McCain.
Not to be overly fair here, but if I were giving daily speeches, on camera, over a period of months, you’d probably be able to string together a video of me looking a bit befuddled too. McCain’s enduring a pretty grueling campaign schedule right now and has proven his physical and mental fitness for the presidency, at least to my satisfaction. If you try and equate his age with senility, a lot of voters will notice that he’s not senile and dismiss the assault.
Maybe. In general, it’s pretty difficult to make the case that McCain is genuinely senile, but I’m not sure if that was the point of the TPM video. Rather, this seems more to me like a statement about the media’s coverage and the perceptions of McCain as a candidate.
Josh wrote the other day:
Out of general fondness, the Washington press corps (which is not just a phrase but a definable community of people) has for almost a decade graded John McCain on a curve, especially in the last eighteen months when he’s slipped perceptibly. Now, in response to the bludgeoning and campaign of falsehoods his campaign has unleashed over the last ten days, a number of his longtime admirers in the punditocracy have written articles either claiming that they’d misjudged the man or lamenting his betrayal of his better self.
So my question is, do they and the top editors who with them define the tone of coverage, keep grading McCain on the curve that has so aided him over the last year?
Let’s be frank. On the campaign trail this cycle, McCain frequently forgets key elements of policies, gets countries’ names wrong, forgets things he’s said only hours or days before and is frequently just confused. Any single example is inevitable for someone talking so constantly day in and day out. But the profusion of examples shows a pattern. Some of this is probably a matter of general unseriousness or lack of interest in policy areas like the economy that he doesn’t care much about. But for any other politician who didn’t have the benefit of years of friendship or acquaintance with many of the reporters covering him, this would be a major topic of debate in the campaign. It’s whispered about among reporters. And it’s evidenced in his campaign’s increasing effort to keep him away from the freewheeling conversations with reporters that defined his 2000 candidacy. But it’s verboten as a topic of public discussion.
Exactly. Under normal standards, a presidential candidate who makes the kind of embarrassing errors that McCain makes would develop a reputation. There’d be talk about whether McCain is really up to the job. The narrative would invariably focus on McCain’s befuddled public appearances.
But that hasn’t happened. That’s what made the TPM clip, at least for me, both provocative and poignant — someone needed to help tie this point together.