Frank Rich even better than usual today on John McCain's cynical exploitation of the financial crisis to fight the surge (ha) Obama was experiencing in the polls (see below). Here's what I don't get: How can anybody support this guy? Almost nobody, even die-hard conservatives, like Bush anymore. Everybody knows the last eight years have been a complete disaster, placing the country in considerable peril. McCain, as Barack Obama likes to remind us, has supported George Bush 90% of the time. So how can anybody be asking for more of this ruin?

Is it just racism? The inability to see past Obama's skin tone? Or is it "patriotism"—actually jingoism, that militaristic faith in a former soldier? Or is it something even darker, something related to Americans' deeply rooted fascistic tendencies? ("U-S-A! U-S-A!..."), to which McCain's "Bomb bomb bomb Iran" brand of world leadership actually appeals?

Whatever it is, it certainly isn't rational. If McCain is elected, it will be because of something wholly emotional. And that's really kind of scary...

"What luck for the rulers that men do not think."—Adolf Hitler

McCain’s Suspension Bridge to Nowhere
By FRANK RICH

What we learned last week is that the man who always puts his “country first” will take the country down with him if that’s what it takes to get to the White House.

For all the focus on Friday night’s deadlocked debate, it still can’t obscure what preceded it: When John McCain gratuitously parachuted into Washington on Thursday, he didn’t care if his grandstanding might precipitate an even deeper economic collapse. All he cared about was whether he might save his campaign. George Bush put more deliberation into invading Iraq than McCain did into his own reckless invasion of the delicate Congressional negotiations on the bailout plan. MORE...