A tribute to Young Johnny McCranky's honesty and trustworthiness, as viewed by "some of those who know him best": Republicans for Obama

"If John says 'I’m going with so and so,' you can’t count on that the next morning. That's not the man we want for president."

-- Rita Hauser, a legendary Republican financier and fund-raiser,
and cofounder of and spokesperson for Republicans for Obama

by Ken

I'm just catching up with Frank Rich's column in yesterday's NYT, in which he pointed out -- obviously correctly -- that beyond the story of Young Johnny McCranky's Vietnam imprisonment Americans know virtually nothing about him, and that almost all of what little they think they know is simply untrue. He seems more optimistic than I am that the candidate's "real story" will eventually be told, but he does add some pungent detail to a story that was reported last week by Michael Luo on the NYT's political blog, but apparently not in the newspaper:

Some of those who know McCain best -- Republicans -- are tougher on him than the press is. Rita Hauser, who was a Bush financial chairwoman in New York in 2000 and served on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in the administration's first term, joined other players in the G.O.P. establishment in forming Republicans for Obama last week. Why? The leadership qualities she admires in Obama -- temperament, sustained judgment, the ability to play well with others -- are missing in McCain. "He doesn't listen carefully to people and make reasoned judgments," Hauser told me. "If John says 'I’m going with so and so,' you can’t count on that the next morning," she complained, adding, "That's not the man we want for president."

Note: The other cofounder of Republicans for Obama mentioned in the Luo NYT blog account is former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee.


UPDATE: BACK ON LINE

While I was without Internet access, I did a lot more TV viewing than normal. I even watched Pastor's Rick's little infomercial for McCain, starring Barack Obama. I like Ken's twist on the futility of pointing out the truth to McCrankyites. But I was also taken by the heavy lack of credibility McCain's lifting of Solzhenitsyn's story about life in the Gulag aroused among right-wingers who have been watching his shameful career and long ago learned about his tendency to say whatever it takes to please the audience he's standing in front of at the moment.

-Howie

#