McCain needs some damn Bobby Knight in his blood.

Can McCain really be surprised by this?  Ads run by the RNC, or with McCain’s own endorsement, tangentially or by implication fan the very flames he tries to put out here.  And while he’s trying to find a pail to put water in to douse the fire he’s started, his VP pick isn’t just blowing on the ashes, she’s picking up flaming logs and chucking them all over the place.

If McCain and his campaign were totally innocent of starting and/or fanning these rumors around, then maybe I could say he’s doing the honorable thing by what he says.  But at the end of the day I just don’t believe that.  Too many ads endorsed by him that dance around these topics with a wink and a nod, and too much of Sarah Palin being out of her depth.  Way out.

Without knowing him personally, I do figure John McCain is probably a pretty decent guy.  Some people (my wife among them) can’t get past the affair (true whether it is Republican (her lean) or Democrat), but with all the mistresses and affairs of world leaders, here and abroad, I’m not going to pass judgment there.  But what I get the feeling is happening here is that instead of setting tones and choosing directions, he is being carried by the current of the river of his party and supporters.

Having gone to IU during the Bob Knight years, I am reminded of an incident I witnessed while attending a game.  Some fans were shouting . . . unpleasantries at the opposing team (could have also been the refs).  During a time out, Knight grabbed a microphone hooked up to the PA system.  He didn’t meekly say “Now, I know the other team’s coach and their players, and, why gosh golly gee, you’d be ok if they were here, on this bench, in place of me and the IU team.”  No, He took that microphone (capitalization intended . . . that’s the kind of presence he was in a room, no matter a closet or a stadium) and said (paraphrased) “CUT THAT CRAP OUT.  STOP GIVING THE UNIVERSITY A BAD NAME, AND ACT LIKE ADULTS.”  It went on for a bit longer than that, but you get the drift.  His personality was the kind that set the tone, it didn’t follow it.

Now Knight had his problems, and his personality while he was at IU was both a blessing and a curse, but when he perceived someone as out of line he set them straight.  If McCain had that in him, that fire, he would have taken that mic back and said to the whole room (paraphrase) “CUT THAT CRAP OUT.  STOP MAKING ALL OF US LOOK LIKE IDIOTS, AND ACT LIKE ADULTS.”  Then he could have said something about an Obama Presidency not being the end of the world (I’m a libertarian, and I don’t even think that) and, you know, actually sound powerful and authoritative.

But what I saw there was someone being pulled along by the current, not picking up his trident and making the water do his bidding.  That to me is a weakness, but I’m not sure where it comes from.  Certainly he is otherwise a strong and able individual, but somehow he’s gone from pulling in a positive direction to being dragged in a negative direction.  Handlers?  Party leaders?  Campaign advisers?  If what we are seeing is part of the Rove playbook, then that paradigm, at least for this election, seems to me to have been broken.

And maybe he can’t win.  Maybe, through no fault of his own, he is the sacrificial lamb that Bush and the economy and the War demand.  That is a possibility.  But if that turns out to be true, then he should take up his post and say with spit and thunder and command “!@(*&-Dammit, if we’re going down, then we’re going down with honor!”  That’s the only kind of spirit that could turn a ship like this around, but I don’t see that happening, and especially not after watching that performance above.