by Mark Silva
Sen. John McCain, who will be 72 at inauguration if he is elected president – the oldest ever at swearing-in – was asked about joking that it won’t be difficult for him to find a younger running mate.
He also was asked about his reputation for a temper.
“Everyone’s life is a work in progress,’’ replied McCain, adding that he has a suitable temperament for the most critical issues facing the next president, and that Americans expect a president “to get angry’’ sometimes. "I will get angry'' at corruption and abuses, he promised.
“When you're asked about who your vice president would be,'' CNN's Dana Bash asked McCain (R-Ariz.), "you say that there are two real roles for the vice president and one is to check on the health of the president and you joked a couple of weeks ago in Pennsylvania that that would be especially important in your case.''
“In all candor, I will continue to use humor,’’ McCain said, “and if any commentator chooses to take a humorous remark and turn it into something serious they are free to do that. But I will continue to use humor and I think the American people like to have a little humor from time to time….And that was what that whole line was about.’’
“In all seriousness,’’ Bash asked, in the interview aired by CNN today, “when you are approaching who you are picking for the vice president, do you think about your age as a factor?’’
“Not particularly, no,’’ McCain said. “I think about whether that person who I selected would be most prepared to take my place and that would be the key criteria.''
“One last thing,'' Bash asked, "because you're talking about it here at Episcopal (the high school in Alexandria, Va., where McCain graduated, and where he campaigned today).
"You are making light, we're talking about humor, of your storied and the - the temper that you say you have and in rereading some of your books to prepare for this bio tour, I noticed that it's a constant them that you yourself talk about even from the time you were a toddler that you had a temper and that it's maybe been a lifelong struggle to try to figure out how to contain that.
“A voter out there reads your books, listen to you, humor or not, about talking about your temper and they say, do I want this guy with his finger on the button? What do you say?
“Well, I say that everyone's life is a work in progress,’’ McCain replied. “I have a better and more impressive record of bipartisanship and working across the aisle and legislative solutions and leadership than anybody that's running against me by far.And those leadership qualities required an even temper.
“And those abilities to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats for the good of my constituents and the country are clear indications that that's a very, very minor thing when it's compared to my record of accomplishment,’’ he said. “My record of accomplishment required even, mature and experienced judgment in order to achieve what I've achieved and I'm confident the American people will judge that as well and I am confident that they'll look at my record and my vision….
“And if they don't expect me to get angry when I see corruption in Washington, when I see wasting needlessly of their tax dollars, when I see people behaving badly, they expect me to get angry and I will get angry because I won't stand for corruption and I won't stand for waste of your tax dollars and I will demand that people serve their country first and the special interests second.’’
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Comments
I don't want this nutty old man anywhere near the nuclear buttons.
"Do we really want this man to be our next president? Do we want a president who has had a history of problems controlling his temper? A number of prominent people have serious concerns".
"Sen. Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the following: “I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues . . . He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We’ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I’ve never seen anyone act like that.”
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/entry/mccains_out_of_control_temper
Posted by: John E | April 1, 2008 4:36 PM
Somebody, please disable the red button before Pres. McCain enters the Oval Office! He's in a rotten mood!
Posted by: the truth | April 1, 2008 4:44 PM
"HANNITY, GRETA, KELLY, AND MIKE ALLEY "I'M NEW SPEAKS"
JACKSON "NO" PACHMAN
LIKE JOHN MCCAIN IS NO RICK RE NZI, RE NZI, AND BINGO WAS THEIR 4 MILLION DOLLAR GAME!
KEEPING THE FAITH
KEEPING HIS COURAGE
PANDERING "LIBERTY IS PRICELESS" UNLESS YOU ARE AT&T OR VERIZON WIRELESS LOBBYIST GIVING ME 20,000 A "FLIGHT" FOR A "MEMO"
JOHN MCCAIN IS OUT WALKING THE WALK, TALKING THE TALK JUST NOT IN ARIZONA. NO ADS FOR YOU! THAT'S "KEATING COUNTRY"
JOHN MCCAIN DIDN'T USE PUBLIC FINANCING. HE WASN'T BROKE, LONELY AND STUCK ON "SURGE"
IT'S NOT MY STORY, MY "EVOLUTION VIEWPOINT" ON
ABORTION, BAN ON MANUFACTURING OR THE SALE OF HANDGUNS.
I'M FROM THE "WILD WILD WEST" I'M FROM MA BELL COUNTRY.
I CAN'T CONTROL "EVOLUTION CAN YOU! ARLINGTON VIRGINIANS, MERIDIAN MISSISSIPPIANS, OR MARYLAND.
I'M JUST HERE TO VISIT, AND I PROBABLY WON'T REMEMBER A THING WHEN I LEAVE, I'M 72 YEARS OLD AND I HAVE "SENIOR" MOMENTS.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO HEAR?
Posted by: Roger Morris | April 1, 2008 4:44 PM
SO from this election cycle I have learned 2 new things from the press. ! is that discriminating against someone on the basis of age is fully appropriate and 2. is that if you have a 20 year association with a racist it is ok just as long as the person is racist against whites and Jews.
Posted by: vinny | April 1, 2008 4:51 PM
SO from this election cycle I have learned 2 new things from the press.
Posted by: vinny | April 1, 2008 4:51 PM
Reading your post it is obvious you have learned nothing. What the rest of the country has learned is that McBush has a nice family album and liked his English teacher. What is lacking is any evidence he has a clue as to what to do to help this country out of a disaster of an economy.
Posted by: bill "Hussein" r. | April 1, 2008 5:05 PM
Here's what makes me angry:
3 times McCain confused Sunni and Shia, Iran and Al Qaeda. Now he is saying that al Sadr asked for the Iraq ceasefire, not Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malki. That is also dead wrong, and dangrous.
Anyone with such pathetic knowledge of national events is not qualified to be president.
Thanks, mainstream media, for completely ignorning it.
Posted by: Paul | April 1, 2008 5:06 PM
EVERYONE gets angry. The issue is how each person handles it. There are degrees between getting angry and losing it. McCain has been know to lose it on many occasions, and that is worthy of character assessment in a presidential candidate.
And McCain's record of bipartisanship seemed to end when he entered this presidential race.
Posted by: DD | April 1, 2008 9:39 PM
I'm saying this seriously...maybe McCain's temper is the beginning of Alzheimer's. It seems I've seen this somewhere before where older peoples' erratic behavior was a prelude to that particular illness. Some serious FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!!
Posted by: Mary in Fort Madison, Iowa | April 1, 2008 10:01 PM
Just keep him away from the bombs!
But then again that won't be a problem since I'm sure the American people will not trust four more years to such outdated republican ideas. Nevermind what a spectacle the democratic race has become. No matter who wins, Obama who I would prefer, or Clinton, (not so much) it's still better than the alternative.
Posted by: McBush Family Value$ | April 2, 2008 3:32 AM
McCain is just more of Bush & Cheney only senile, irrational, and completely uninformed. He should be a embarassment to the entire Republican party since "Inept John" seems to be the best they do.
Of course the Republican party should be familiar with embarrassment starting back in 2000 when they stole the election. Unfortunately they don't seem embarassed or concerned about the lack of leadership which created and caused any number of crisis situations this country now faces. Bush & Cheney should be in prison.
Posted by: Uncle Earl | April 2, 2008 10:24 AM
Nothing wrong showing a little temper every now and then, at least he cares ablut more than just getting elected With all the corruption in Washington, it is about time there is someone in the White House who will put special interest groups where they belong.
Posted by: Mark | April 2, 2008 10:29 AM
Harry Truman had a temper and knew how to control it. He was decisive and knew how to accept responsibility for his acts. Nixson had a temper but hid it it until his tapes were released. Carter seemed easy-going but was very strong-minded. Bill Clinton was quite explosive in private but used that southern "smooth" to gloss it over publicly.
If you want to write about tempers and the inability to control them, consider some of the comments by the insiders in the Clinton Whitehouse about Hillery's rants and obsenity-filled yelling sessions with the staff. If you want to pick a president based on temperment, let's start writing about the tempers of each of the current candidates; not just the one who is 71 and a republican.
Posted by: Jerry O. Sr. | April 2, 2008 10:36 AM
SO from this election cycle I have learned 2 new things from the press. ! is that discriminating against someone on the basis of age is fully appropriate and 2. is that if you have a 20 year association with a racist it is ok just as long as the person is racist against whites and Jews.
Posted by: vinny | April 1, 2008 4:51 PM
Vinny,
If these are the only two things you learned, then you haven't learned anything at all. You need to stop watching Fox altogether and then you need to start taking anything the press dishes out with a grain of salt.
Do you see that bouncing ball? It's called the money ball and if you follow it you will have a deeper understanding of what motivates the stories that the press dishes out. The media is not "free". They are marketing vehicles for the fat cats and they move to the beat of the bouncing money ball, not real news.
You cannot compare discrimination of an elderly person to the discrimination against minorities and women that has plagued this country. Thinking about whether someone will live out his first year in office, let alone 4 or 8 years, is a legitimate question and consideration that should be taken.
However, taking into consideration the ethnicity or gender of a candidate has no bearing on whether they are patriotic or competent enough to be President.
What you should have learned from the media is that they treat McBush with kid gloves, plain and simple. Now you can wax poetic about the fact that since the Republican candidate has already been chosen, there's nothing to cover there, but I vehemently disagree.
The media has barely covered McBush's flip-flopping on issues like; gun control, Bush's tax cuts, John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Jerry Falwell, Roe vs. Wade and the list goes on.
Then there's the double-standard of writing off his Sunni vs Shia and Al-Qaeda vs Iran debacles a week and a half ago. Had this happened to Obama or Clinton, it would've been disastrous, but for McCain it was written off as being "tired" and was barely covered at all.
Continuing on that line, why is the news media so intent on seeing Obama and Clinton's tax returns, but seem to have no interest in the tax returns of one John McCain? Obama released his, Clinton has said she will release hers (but she's too busy right now) and no one seems to care one way or the other about McCain's tax returns (which he has not released).
These are the things you should have learned, if you weren't walking around "Eye's Wide Shut".
As far as the age thing and economic thing, McCain should take on Ron Paul as his running mate. As a doctor he would be able to revive him if he has a grabber and from an economic stand point, Ron Paul is one Republican who makes sense to me.
As for me, eight more years of Bush is absolutely out of the question. My vote is against team McBush.
Posted by: Nelson | April 2, 2008 11:34 AM
So McCain's got a temper. So what? Nobody made a big deal about the screaming, scatological rants of Bill Clinton when he was bringing shame to the Oval Office. And there have been many anecdotes reported about the tirades of Hillary Clinton when she didn't get instant agreement or attention, including lamps being thrown at the President and disgraceful treatment of Secret Service personnel whose mission was to protect her sorry a**. The media has a habit of glossing over the temperament of the Clintons but they seem determined to highlight McCain's. I wonder why that is??
Posted by: Bill Sieger | April 2, 2008 11:45 AM
McCain has a really violent temper.
I much prefer Hillary's demure, lady like style: http://tammybruce.com/2007/12/hillary_in_her_own.php
NOT!
Posted by: Midwesterner | April 2, 2008 6:42 PM