THE MAN WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN PRESIDENT – AT 10:11 A.M. ET:  Whether you thought John McCain ran a good campaign in 2008 or not (he didn't), he should have been president.  The president's first responsibility is national security, and in this there is no comparison between the wise McCain and the slick, incompetent Obama. 

McCain is now part of a trio in the Senate – himself, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, who have led in national-security policy, warning us of the threats before this nation...and getting ignored.

McCain is in Europe today, and again he gets it right.  From The Washington Times: 

In an interview with the Associated Press in Italy on Saturday, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate criticized the man who won that election for not aiding rebels in Syria, abandoning Iraq and Afghanistan, and delaying tough decisions on Iran’s nuclear program.

“In a way it’s almost like watching a train wreck,” he said of the apparent failure to stem Iran’s nuclear efforts.
What does the senator from Arizona make of the notable absence of such talk at last month’s Republican National Convention that nominated Mitt Romney and focused mostly on the economy? The famous straight-talker was cautiously bipartisan.

“Yup, it was” absent, he said. “The election is about jobs and the economy, but a failed … national security policy over time is going to lead to significant domestic problems.”

“It’s the job of presidents and candidates to lead and articulate their vision for America’s role in the world. The world is a more dangerous place than it’s been since the end of the Cold War, and so I think the president should lead and I think candidates for the presidency should lead and talk about it, and I’m disappointed that there hasn’t been more.”

And...

On Friday, addressing the plenum, the trio of self-styled mavericks won European fans by criticizing the dysfunction in American politics, then challenged their audience with a call for far greater U.S. activism in the Middle East — particularly aiding Syria’s rebels and on Iran.

McCain said sanctions almost never work, Lieberman said the “red line” should be weapons capability and not the actual creation of a weapons, and Graham said the United States should make it clear that if Iran pressed on it faced a “massive attack” from the United States and not Israel, a scenario which he said Iran’s leaders know they could not survive.

McCain cut a somewhat wistful figure at the proceedings — disarmingly accessible yet gravely ominous, a smiling, hard-headed reminder of what might have been.

COMMENT:  Yes, what might have been.  McCain went on to decry the vicious attack on Sarah Palin that followed her selection in 2008. 

And yet, today, the Republican Party still doesn't understand the impact of press bias and rigged reporting.  If you think you've seen the worst of it, you haven't.  Wait 'til October.  If Romney starts to catch up, I have no doubt that we'll see "investigative" reports on his past, published right before the election, too late to refute.  All the press has to do is change the election by four points to put their man in office.  They did it in 2008.

September 9, 2012