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COLUMNISTS
TODAY'S STORIES
27.10.2008
Messiah Watch

... and they say that Democrats have a messiah complex. From David Gerlenter in the Weekly Standard:

Granting the importance of the topic, the difference in moral stature between presidential candidates has rarely been as enormous as it is today--not (or not only) because Obama's is so small but because McCain's is so large. There is no single English word for McCain the hero, the moral entity. But in Hebrew he would be called a tsaddik--a man of such nobility and moral substance that he approaches holiness. If this assertion sounds crazy, that only shows how little we have thought about the issue.

--Franklin Foer 

 

Posted: Monday, October 27, 2008 1:10 PM with 10 comment(s)

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cspencef said:

So you think you're The One, huh?  

October 27, 2008 1:22 PM

rozenson said:

John McCain is by no means a tzaddik. He is, however, an alter kacker and a putz for all the negative campaigning.

What would really be a Messiah Watch is if Gerletner had called him a "Lamed-vavnik." You can look it up on Wikipedia, Gentiles.

October 27, 2008 1:29 PM

kevincollins said:

Forgive me if I impulsively puke before I laugh my head off.

October 27, 2008 1:36 PM

simon greenwood said:

You know, considering that the only reason McCain ended up a Senator was because he kept crashing planes as part of some passive aggressive Oedipal thing and cheated on his cancer-stricken wife to marry into dirty money, I'm not sure he really approaches holiness that closely.  Yes, he was courageous and right in his defense of the surge, but I expect that most people can accomplish one good thing given 72 years.

October 27, 2008 1:41 PM

Rhubarbs said:

One so rarely sees the American right's Sharon envy expressed so overtly.

October 27, 2008 2:00 PM

jfelliott said:

Nice to know that David Gelertner is still a douche.

October 27, 2008 2:22 PM

wildboy said:

Rozenson,

I assume that, what with McCain and Lieberman taking up two spots, there is only a Lamed Daled left for the rest of us?

Seriously, this is a fine example of Gelertner and others of his ilk writing fulsome praises of their Fantasy McCain without any reference to anything he has said or done on the campaign trail this year.  We can all feel much better after he loses and they can simply keep writing encomiums to him in their collective spare time.

October 27, 2008 2:34 PM

drdannyu said:

I would laugh at this, but my ability to process surreal self-parody or Orwellian levels of irony completely blew out a few weeks ago.  I plan to replace the fuses after Nov 4th, because they'll only melt down again if I do so beforehand.

October 27, 2008 2:35 PM

blackton said:

John McCain, like Jesus only he kicks ass.

October 27, 2008 3:13 PM

icarusr said:

It's amazing how right wing speaking points across the globe inevitably dovetail together.  I kid you not, but this same passage is almost word for word from campaign literature written for and about Ahmadinejad. (One wag famously said he is a second coming of Muhammad; another said that he saw a halo about his head; a third called him the miracle of the millennium, etc.)  And of course everytime Palin drools and dribbles words out of her mouth, I am reminded of Ahmad baby.

October 27, 2008 6:26 PM