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The only thing I hold McCain responsible for are the ads that say, "I'm John McCain and I approve of this message" and I would have disappointed if he hadn't taken the mic from those people at his rally and said something to them. I do also think that he should reign in Palin more, but as far as the RNC's BS I don't hold that as a blight on his personal character.
I do think that a leader can't just say or be a leader without the followers' support. I mean, you can get promoted to the manager in your workplace but still have the rest of the employees not particularly care for your personally or your authority. When that happens, projects can become a clusterfuck because there are these little clicks and power struggles over who really has authority over the group of people. So in this respect, I just don't see McCain having that kind of authority over his political party, and it makes sense because he is actually trying to use that to his advantage by arguing he's never been the doll of the RNC...which would work if he was being followed by someone, such as, the democrats. Because in Washington, you can't just do things on your own, no matter which position you hold.
So this inability of McCain's to put an end to the personal attacks that should be under his direct control is a testament to his lack of moral authority over the Republicans as a party, in my opinion. And I think that will present problems in his leadership capacity. I don't think he'll be able to lead effectively, not because he can't, but because it doesn't look like they respect him as their ultimate authority and won't listen when he says this is how it has to be.
Obama can't be held liable for things private people write on their blogs, anymore than McCain can be blamed for loons shouting bizarre shit at rallies. Now, if Obama had said we should check this guy out, rather than simply addressing his concerns during the debate, I'd impart some responsibility to him. Just like some people can do so about how McCain agitated people to concern over the Ayers connection to Obama.
For myself, however, I give McCain a pass on the Ayers issue. I do so because I really believe he's in between a rock and a hard place rather than just slinging mud for political expediency. I suspect he really, truly believes that Ayers is a piece of shit. But he can't say that publicly because he'd look petty and unforgiving to a huge chunk of people, and a lot of people who were sympathetic to Vietnam protestors in whatever flavor they came in. But to McCain, a man who endured torture for a cause he *must* believe was just or his predicament was for naught, and to come from a long line of military family members, to a person like that, someone bombing things on domestic soil to protest the war he personally suffered in a way that no one can really know the depth of how it affected him, that person will never be forgiven in his mind...such a person can't be forgiven by McCain.
If McCain were my next door neighbor, I wouldn't even try to talk to him about the reasoning of rehabilitation or unjustness of Vietnam. I wouldn't even go there, much like we know that murderers get out of prison and go work as landscapers but I wouldn't try and have a dispassionate discussion about rehabilitation or forgiveness to the father of a murdered daughter about the guy mowing his lawn. I'd keep my mouth shut regardless of how I felt about the subject. I would never let theory trump personal experience...I might believe it, I might believe it to be true, but I would not make someone who was personally affected by something believe their experience was less valuable than what the rest of the data shows. This isn't about anecdotal evidence, but the very specific instances of people who are negatively and personally affected by something that happened in their own lives that comprises who they are as a human being.
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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann
"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman
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