Stapling machine, Mr Clarke

Gotta wonder how less successful presidential candidates feel about the continued prominence of buffoonish former candidates Howard Dean and John McCain. Both are back in the news this week. Dean is pushing an utterly preposterous argument on the public option. McCain...well, where to start. There's his leadership in the "don't cut Medicare because we need to cut Medicare" drive -- this article assumes that he and the GOP were merely being hypocritical and opportunistic by switching from supporting cuts in Medicare to opposing them, but the floor debate made clear that the GOP hasn't flip-flopped: they're actually arguing that Medicare will go broke unless cuts are made, and that cuts can't be made because they'll hurt beneficiaries. Confused? John McCain isn't; his brain is made for that sort of thing. But that's not all! There's also Afghanistan...I think this one is just garden variety flip-flopping, but this one shows McCain in all his Mrs. Zambesi glory.

I hadn't previously thought of Dean and McCain together, but I think it makes a lot of sense; both of them seem to feel that their certainty overrides not only the facts, but even any need to bother learning about the facts (or at least speaking as if they knew the facts). Dean was guaranteed to produce at least one whopper per debate when he was running for the nomination in 2004, and McCain, you know about. And yet both seem to keep their reputations as somewhat serious policy-makers.

Kudos and thanks to Yglesias for staying on top of McCain's latest foibles.