Will Bails on McCain

John “100 Years War” McCain has been hemorrhaging prominent onetime supporters in the national news media for months now. Like Joe Klein, Elizabeth Drew, Sebastian Mallaby, Richard Cohen, and others, these former cheerleaders for the “Straight Talk Express” have been turned off by McCain’s pattern of lies, his newfound aversion for a critical press, his poor judgment in choosing the unqualified governor of Alaska as his running mate, and his willingness to sacrifice his honor to be elected president. It seems no day can go by anymore without the McCain-Palin camp showing its contempt for truth and the wheels of justice.

Which may be why The Washington Post’s George F. Will, one of the most well-respected conservative columnists in the game, has finally joined the “enough is enough” club. In his column this morning, Will wrote:

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

This follows Will’s unexpected comments on Sunday’s This Week program about how Democrat Barack Obama has appeared “presidential, calm, and unflustered” in the face of America’s worsening financial crises, while McCain has been busy “substituting vehemence for coherence”--what Will called “unpresidential behavior.”

Wow, when even Will criticizes McCain as unfit for the presidency, you know that the Republican’t candidate is in trouble.

READ MORE: “The Scandal No One Is Supposed to Mention,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “GOP Takes Brunt of Blame for Economy; Obama Gains,” by Paul Steinhauser (CNN); “McCain’s Scapegoat” (The Wall Street Journal); “Running Against Themselves” (The New York Times).