Whatever you think of America, you can’t deny that its Presidential elections this year are fascinating.
There’s Barack Obama — first African-American candidate for the White House. Now there’s Sarah Palin — first female candidate for Vice-President. And, in between, there’s…what’s his name again?...oh, yes, John McCain.
Interesting man
McCain is an interesting man in his own right. It takes some chutzpah to voluntarily refuse early release from a Vietnam prisoner of war camp on the basis that other detainees would not be allowed out so soon. McCain has (if you can forgive me for quoting John Wayne) a certain splattering of ‘True Grit’. He stuck to his guns, to use another unfortunate metaphor, about Iraq. Yes, he voted for the war. No, he wasn’t going to apologise for it. He thought he was right. He still did. Only a few months ago, in what seems like a different political age, that decision not to flip-flop on The War appeared to consign him to an early political grave. Then ‘the surge’, the increase in troops to Iraq (which McCain also advocated) began to make some inroads, according to all but the most partisan of observers. And suddenly McCain’s campaign was back on track.
