I've written a few times of McCain and the anger I've seen bubbling within him. I've written that he is dangerous and not to be trusted, but I have to say. Even that feeling lent him some degree of legitimacy. He sort of replaced "seething, twisted torture victim waiting to unleash holy hell on anyone in his path" with "doddering, insincere shmuck."

The nation does not want a raging warmaniac for President. And McCain is smart enough to see that people want to be inspired. So he has taken on this "honest, inspirational, changemaking leader" image. Which will never work. Not in a million years. Because you can't be Fake Obama when Real Obama is right next to you.

Sure, the public is far too used to pretend-genuine talk from politicians, but many have had water splashed on their faces. Now they dare to dream they can get straight talk, not Straighttalk®. And the moment that the two are placed side by side, well. It would be like someone squeezing dogshit into an apple pie crust and sliding that up on the counter next to a hot slice of apple pie. Um. I've smelled the two...do I reeeeeeally need to take a bite?

Clinton was a more dangerous adversary against Obama than McCain could ever be in that she felt no compunction attacking the fact that Obama inspires so many with not just rhetoric, but with his vision and his personal story and situation. This is part of Obama's most powerful weaponry. Her very demonization of such "hope" is something McCain cannot do, as he is trying to coopt it. Yet, it was powerful because the nature of something ethereal tho magical, like inspiration is that enough negativity can seep in and drown it out if you let it. And we are used to letting the negativity seep in. TV tells us we are nervous, insecure, ugly and smell funny. So much of our culture is built directly on concession to cynical lines of thinking. Clinton, in these moments of trying to take Obama's legs out from under him, did nothing so much as mirror the negative self talk that is always ready to spring forth.

"How dare you dream of such things?! How dare you dream of being better? Freer? More able? Of standing above the ugliness? HA! You are mired down here with me! Silly dreamer! Grow up and let's get REAL." Says the voice of the spoiled superego, of society's rot, of old and bitter failures, of our own negative Self. And she exploited that. (Which is kind of like snatching away a kid's birthday cake on their birthday just so you can sell some kleenex when they start crying, but...we're being nice to Clintons now, so I'll move on.)

Obama says, instead, shut that voice down! Dream. Hope. Do be inspired. Do dare that we can overcome these odds. Do dare that we can make the changes we need to make. Do believe. And the power lies not in arranging letters and words to construct the shape of his speeches; the power lies in the fact that he means it. After all, how could he have come to the place he has if he did not live in that energy, if he were not guided by that message? He means it, and he acts on it. And even if McCain goes after it...it's a dud. See, because, people want to be inspired right now. And they want to believe in someone's integrity...and so on, and so on. Basically What the People Want ≠ All That is McCain.

Sad fact is, John McCain is simply wedged by circumstance into an unwinnable position. When even FOX News can't muster up the will to pretend the GOP's chosen sacrificial lamb nominee's "prebuttal" speech was anything aside from pathetic and hollow, then you know it's a new day.

PS, in case it wasn't clear, McCain was standing in front of a Green Screen because he wants us to drop footage of WWII behind him! Go, editors, go!!