The 2008 campaign needs to end soon

Because I'm not entirely sure how much longer I can go on agreeing with people like George Will and not lose my sanity. Quoting Will's op-ed in the Washington Post on Tuesday:

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

And that sentiment seems to be borne out by McCain calling for Friday's debate to be delayed (or possibly canceled?), saying:

It's for both parties to come together to solve this problem. We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved. I'm directing my campaign to work the Obama campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates to delay Friday night's debate, until we have taken action to address this crisis.

McCain canceled his appearance on David Letterman's show (which, by the way, Letterman is really not happy about), claiming that he (McCain) had to get back to Washington because the economy is "about to crater".

Really now? Is the economy in that much trouble that John McCain has to stop all aspects of his campaign? Can McCain not, as Obama wryly said, focus on more than one thing at a time, and if not, is that really a characteristic we want in a President?

Now, I will concede that something needs to be done, though (agreeing with George Will and other conservatives once again), I'm not sure offering bailouts without any sort of oversight (as Treasury Secretary Paulson originally proposed) is the best way of achieving that. But is there anything McCain (or Obama, for that matter) can practically do over the next 36 hours other gather a few good photo ops and maybe show up to vote on whatever bill Congress and President Bush manage to work out? As a voter in November's election, I really think my interests are better served by hearing what these two men have to offer come January 2009.

Or at the very least, send in the VP candidates to debate on Friday. They are, after all, supposed to be the surrogates for their respective candidate, ready to take over when necessary. What better for a first test than this?

Getting back to the key point, though, this action by McCain is yet another example of what I think I may start calling his "erratic certainty", the sense McCain seems to convey that what he says at the moment has to be true, regardless of what factual reality may actually be; in effect, what John McCain seems to have done is elevate truthiness to a new, erratic, and somewhat terrifying level. And we've certainly seen some of the evidence of that over the past week or two, as McCain has gone from "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" to "by 'fundamentals' I meant the American workers" (how ever nonsensical that statement may be) to "well, maybe we should do something" to "the economy is about to crater".

And this isn't and shouldn't be worrying only to those who identify themselves as liberals. As George Will points out,

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

The answer to that last question, I'm sad to say, is "probably not". And I'm worried that too few voters will realize or care enough by November 4^th to stop us from discovering the price this country will have to pay for "a dismaying temperament".