McCain's contempt

Jack Lessenberry

You may not have realized it, but the entire Republican National Convention was actually a literary plot to get J.D. Salinger, who hasn't published anything in Sarah Palin's lifetime, to come out of retirement.

Yes, I know Salinger is almost 90, and for all I know his brain has turned to Cream of Wheat. But how could the author of the Catcher in the Rye resist the opportunity for the perfect sequel, the Levi Johnston story, told in the first person? Just think of it! You are an average, loutish, scraggly bearded, indifferent, 17-year-old student.

You sullenly and defiantly define yourself as a "fuckin' redneck," and put it out there on MySpace, for all the world to see. Your hobbies are "kickin' ass and playing hockey." Your career prospects are not so hot; you've already got a criminal record. But you do have a pretty hot girlfriend, who is none too bright herself, but has warm spaniel eyes and adores you. You get it up her, but aren't careful enough. She's knocked up. She doesn't believe in abortion, and what's worse, her mother is the goddamn governor!

Game over! Life over! Whaddafuck do you do now? And then, in a blinding flash, you are transformed into a national hero of the culture wars! There you are, on the front page of The New York Times, a paper you never heard of but which they say is very important, being welcomed to the convention by the presidential nominee himself, a man who was pretty old when you were born!

There you are, sitting clutching the hand of the divine, gum-chewing Bristol, who's wearing a too-tight dress intended to emphasize her pregnancy, with millions staring at you both on national network TV!

Admit it, something is happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Johnston? You are indeed the quintessential, and quintessentially clueless ... Catcher in the Wry. That reverie made me happy for an hour, till I realized that I wasn't in an opium dream, or an early Woody Allen movie. What it was instead was a highly dangerous insult.

The Republicans and John McCain insulted — not necessarily in this order — our intelligence, this nation and the world. He may have insulted women, worst of all.

With that one single stroke, John McCain proved that he is not fit to be our president. It is the most important and most powerful job in the world, carrying with it the possibility of blowing up the planet — and the demand that you find a way not to.

You have to make life-and-death decisions, have a clear philosophy of where you want to take the economy, have the seasoning to deal with leaders from altogether different cultures. Sarah Palin is simply not ready to be president..........