from OpEd News:
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=66925
August 20, 2008 - 8:44pm.
I'm no doctor, nor have I ever played one on TV.
But family members and close friends have suffered from serious mental
declines and problems. Watching a loved one change for the worse is
emotionally exhausting, frustrating, demoralizing, and depressing.
Denial only works for so long.
John McCain and his campaign proudly promote his experience in
foreign affairs. They pretend to believe that they have some great
advantage over Obama, despite the cluster*** and quagmire that Iraq and
Afghanistan have become. The more we look into Georgia-Russia, the
worse McCain looks.
Recently on other foreign issues, McCain seems ever more confused.
He repeatedly mixed up Sunni and Shiite, he forgot that Iran is a
Shiite country, he claimed Iran was training Sunni terrorists and
hosted Al Qaida terrorists, and he was lucky to have Sen. Lieberman
nearby to correct him during his recent embarrassing trip.
He called the Czech Republic "Czechoslovakia." He thought that
Pakistan and Iraq share a common border and he said the Vladimir Putin
was the current president of Germany. All of this in just the last
three months. There are many more examples, even more frightening and
dismaying.
While everyone is entitled to make mistakes, so many basic errors
can indicate more serious cognitive problems, especially when many of
his actions are becoming strange in other ways. What presidential
candidate would offer his wife up for a topless contest at a biker
convention, or sing "Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran?"
On at least 5 occasions in the last two months, when asked an
unexpected question, this dazed, "deer in the headlights" look crossed
his face, and when he finally responded, his answers had nothing to do
with the issues raised.
On major issues, (abortion, social security, taxes, Iran, Iraq,
off-shore drilling, stem cells, just to mention a few) McCain either
forgot his previous stances and changed his mind, or he is incapable of
recalling positions he held dearly as recently as a year ago. McCain's
problem is that he categorically denies ever changing his positions,
even when he is shown video and news articles.
A growing group of conservatives, moderates, and medically educated
are beginning to question his mental status, as similar disturbing
events continue to occur.
Senile Dementia results in progressive loss of memory and mental
abilities, and noticeable personality changes. Short-term memory is
affected first, and a victim then has increasing emotional and physical
instability, with unpredictable switches between apathy and aggression.
Victims fill in the blanks in their memory unpredictably, and
confabulate facts routinely. More and more, his behavior resembles that
of Senile Dementia sufferers.
Dementia sufferers can be friendly, interactive, intelligent,
responsive, convincing, alert, and fully aware. Yet, even they
understand that something is wrong, and more than anyone, an
intelligent person hates to admit it to himself. His statements
yesterday and today, discussing the office of Vice President as someone
who WOULD take over for the president (McCain) for medical reasons,
suggested that he already knows that he suffers from a serious problem.
John McCain has served his nation honorably. Except for his Keating
5 scandal, he seems to have avoided most troubles that other
congressmen and senators seem to attract like shit attracts flies. Then
again, the Abramof scandal has not fully played out, and many of his
lobbyist advisers may yet taint him with their own criminal activities.
While John McCain deserves respect and thanks for his past service,
that service should not and cannot blind us from recognizing and
considering a growing collection of strange behavior and serious
misstatements. If McCain does suffer from a progressive mental
disability, he has no business being president.
Let us hope that our media, previously seduced by an alert,
semi-independent, self-described maverick, won't allow their biases and
past love, blind them from the decline he displays more and more often.
Let us hope his aides who prop him up on weekdays (since McCain is
physically and mentally incapable of campaigning on weekends) recognize
what America deserves - a sane, fit, energetic, and rational president.
More often than not, John McCain no longer fits that description.
Did it ever occur to anyone that the neo-cons may know exactly what they are doing by choosing an unlikely candidate for president like McCain? The next obvious question is, what does that mean? I have said it many times before and I will say it yet again, the next few months may turn out to be very interesting....