Some people say that McCain's not knowing how many houses he has is not a big deal - he's just rich and there's nothing wrong with that - in fact, it's the American dream.

As AnitaBee points out in this post, it's not being rich that's his problem, it's that he's old, forgetful and generally clueless.

I'll add to that a couple other points:

1.) He's out of touch with _everything_ - even his own property! (Either that or he doesn't know how to count to 10.) How can such a man be in touch with the whole country, its people and the entire world?

2.) If he doesn't know the number of his own houses, how could he possibly know the vast amounts of economic, financial, political, geographic, historical data needed to make good domestic and foreign policy decisions? He barely passed the navy academy when he was young, how will he learn now, at the age of 72?

3.) Everything needs to be done for him, even basic things like shopping and computer usage, let alone running his campaign. He constantly needs to be babysitted, "kept on message" and corrected. All he does is confuse himself all the time and make gaffes as soon as he steers off message that others prepared for him. He's his own worst enemy. How can such a man run a country and foreign relations in a credible way? And more importantly, if he got elected, who would _really_ be running the country? Certainly not anyone elected.

4.) He forgets his own policies, positions and past votes. This is not the first time he said something like "I'll have my staff get back to you." Beside the recent viagra/birth-control awkwardness, there was also a less known exchange on the Straight Talk Express when he's asked about a similar topic and eventually says: "I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was.
Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m
sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the
president’s policies on it."
So he's either: a) really forgetful, b) votes on issues he knows nothing about (e.g. to please Bush), or c) if the public knew his positions on subjects like birth-control, he'd lose a lot of moderate voters, so he rather plays dumb.

It's pretty clear that McCain never really took care of himself and solved real problems. He was born into a family where both his father and grandfather were navy generals, which provided for his career in the navy, until his father died and his career hit a dead end. Luckily he married the rich heiress just the year before, so he was taken care of for the rest of his life.

Now that was certainly a good thing for him, but it also means that he never had to work OR think particularly hard, solve real problems and have real responsibility. And as we know, brain, just like muscles, deteriorates if it's not exercised. Evidently his brain is in a very bad shape and belongs more in a senior home than in the White House.

As president, the best he could do is be a puppet. But God forbid that he ever finds himself alone and has to make an important decision on his own, without his trusty brain surrogates like Lieberman, Schmidt, Cindy, Gramm etc.


We used to think of John McCain as a candidate who could use the 3 A.M. phone call ad to a great advantage. But can you imagine him now, such as he is, answering a real such phone call?
His answer would probably sound something like:
"GODDAMMIT, DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS!?! ... What, a crisis? Tell me about it, my friend, we MUST win! ... Who, Putin? Wait, he's the president of Germany... or is it Czechoslovakia? No, he's someone more dangerous, I know it. I think he's that terrorist leader from Al Qaeda... I also think he's Sunni or Shi'ite, but I'll ask Joe and get back to you. ... What, he invaded Georgia? We must help Georgia, they voted for me! We must win! ... What, Georgia's in Europe? Wait, I'm confused... I'll have my staff get back to you... Oh wait, never mind, just bomb Iran!"

(But of course, while McCain may be clueless in almost every respect, he can always tell you one thing: "My friend, you know I was a POW, HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME?! Now leave me alone and get off my lawn!")