Existential Losers

Did anyone else find a little ironic John McCain’s insistence during Friday’s presidential debate that he “never won the Miss Congeniality award in the senate” when, of course, his running mate actually did win “Miss Congeniality” in the Miss Alaska pageant?

Also: during the debate, McCain said that a nuclear Iran poses an “existential threat” to the State of Israel.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, now, and … to be honest, I’ve no idea what the man was talking about.

Certainly, the State of Israel has good cause for some existential questions: Why does Israel exist? … Where did it come from? … When will it finally be recognized as a terrorist state by the United States? (Er… that last question is an important question, but perhaps not an existential question.) Perhaps Israel should ask itself some questions: “Why am I here?” “What’s the meaning of my existence?” “Is life, like my borders, completely arbitrary and without rational justification?”

Certainly, these are questions that commentators and scholars have been asking for half a century now … questions still to be resolved … questions deeply troubling … cause for angst, if not existential angst …

My best guess, though, is simply that: McCain’s grasp of the English language is just a little tenuous. (Rather like his mentor George W Bush … who might actually be an intelligent man, but misuses words with the embarrassing regularity of a pretentious imbecile. Would it be too much to ask to have a leader who is fluent in … at least one language?)

When saying that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel, McCain probably meant that Iran threatens the existence of Israel. An existence-tial threat, as it were. Oh, ha ha, John McCain! You’re such a wordsmith!

Well, if McCain doesn’t know what existentialism is, it’s no wonder: he’s never been the sharpest crayon in the box. Oh, not by a long shot.

In fact, McCain graduated 884th in his Naval Academy class of 899 students.

That’s not the top 5% of his class … nope. Not even close.

That’s not even the bottom 5% of his class … or the bottom 2% of his class. That’s the bottom of the bottom 1% of his class.

Ouch.

Certainly, I don’t insist that every presidential candidate graduate magna cum laude from Havard, but I would hope the republican party could come up with a candidate who, say, graduated in the upper half of his class? Maybe just someone … average? No smarter–but no dumber–than the rest of us?

Oh, wait! Average! Like … Sarah Palin! Who took six years to attend five small colleges to graduate with a four-year dead-end degree in “communications-journalism” from the University of Idaho. How’s that for average? You can bet she didn’t graduate cum laude…

Maybe that’s average qualifications for a sportscaster. … But it makes me cringe to think that the people I spend the most time hanging out with are more educated than McCain’s VP pick. (!!)

Despite her sportscaster experience, Sarah Palin has poor posture. Poor posture!

Simply put: as Average-Joes go, McCain and Palin are, at best, pretty average joes. As a presidential hopefuls? They’re losers–abjectly and, we can only hope, in the fullest sense of the word.

Good lord.

Okay … one more: the McCain campaign originally listed Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of Palin’s foreign relations experience. And somehow it’s stuck.

But what’s funny is that Republicans keep repeating this little factoid … in all seriousness. And Democrats keep repeating this little factoid with grimacing smiles. I guess what’s funny is that the Republicans who keep spouting this fact don’t really get it that they’re being made fun of. Even Sarah Palin doesn’t seem to get it. See below:

COURIC: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land– boundary that we have with– Canada. It– it’s funny that a comment like that was– kind of made to– cari– I don’t know, you know? Reporters–

COURIC: Mock?

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our– our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia–

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We– we do– it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is– from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to– to our state.

There ya have it.