George Will on McCain

"The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around." -- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

So begins George Will's thoughtful column on John McCain's response to the economic crisis at hand.

Will's last paragraph says it well ...

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?

Will, of course, writes from a conservative perspective, but the kind of conservatism once the bedrock of the GOP - when the Greedy Old Party was once the Grand Old Party.

A kind of conservatism that wanted to save a few dollars, promoted a strong military, could work the other side of the aisle, whose bark was worse than its bite. When it comes to the GOP as it should be, I recall the Senator from Illinois: Everett Dirksen, with his unmade-bed hair and his annual plea to make the Marigold the national flower. Without his cross-aisle work, it's doubtful if Lyndon Johnson could have succeeded passing his landmark civil rights legislation.

What has happened to the Greed Old Party is nothing less than tragic, becoming a sham under the hammer of the far right.

I can appreciate how difficult it must be for a man like George Will to raise these kinds of questions about McCain, but McCain, whatever he might have been, is now ensnared in the Rovian Universe of the Queen of Hearts.